


Blood & Ice

by Soledad



Category: Star Trek: The Next Generation
Genre: F/M, Hermaphrodites, Other, Script Rewrite, So very AU, Space zombies, the road not taken
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-09
Updated: 2016-07-09
Packaged: 2018-07-22 13:15:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 29,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7440604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Soledad/pseuds/Soledad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A "Lost Voyages of TNG" AU story. Enterprise is on her way to meet a sister ship, but finds more than bargained for, revealing a shameful secret from the Federation's past in the process.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Foreword & Introduction

**FOREWORD AND INTRODUCTION**

Everyone knows that TV-series seldom turn out to be the exactly same thing their creators have originally planned. Not even Gene Roddenberry and _Star Trek – The Next Generation_ is an exception from this general rule. Fortunately, even though the authors of the actual series abandon them, sometimes these early concepts become known – and sometimes they are even more fun than the actual end product is.

It is known that Picard’s first name was planned to be Julien, that Natasha Yar was meant to be the ship’s counselor and a fiery Latino woman by the dreadful name of “Macha” Hernandez was supposed to be the security chief of the _Enterprise-G_ (!), which would have housed a crew of about two thousand. Also, the Crusher kid was supposed to be a girl named Leslie, who’d have been 16 at the beginning of the series.

 

A long time ago, we played around with those rejected ideas in the Hungarian Star Trek Club – with the original names and functions of characters that were, in some parts, greatly changed. We even played around with rejected plot ideas, thinking of ways how they could have actually worked, given more attention to detail and characterization… and more love for the actual fandom from the side of the screenwriters. Some of those ideas have gained a life of their own in the years in-between and became actual stories.

Consequently, the main plotline of this particular story is based, very loosely, on former TNG-producer Herb Wright's similarly titled, truly godawful – and fortunately rejected – idea, although it has hopefully advanced a great deal from there. In any case, this has been written with the tongue firmly in the cheek and is not to be taken too seriously.

If you think that I’m a bit mean to Beverly, Yar and Ryker, you’re right. But since they’re not the same characters we got to know in the actual series, I think it’s not such a big deal. If a bit of mild character assassination bothers you, however, you should probably avoid this story.

All others – have fun!


	2. Prelude

**PRELUDE**

Captain’s personal log, stardate: 42076.7  
Captain Julien Picard recording

The _Enterprise_ is en route to the USS _Copernicus_ , to aid in the annual personnel rotation exchange, which is certainly a mission that proves nothing out of the ordinary. However, after the dangerous and near-lethal encounters in the recent months, a routine mission is something that will be welcome by the crew; the next best thing to shore leave, which we cannot grant the crew just yet.

The Starfleet bulletin about the crewmembers to be exchanged hasn’t been sent yet, I’m looking forward with some anxiety to the new personnel Starfleet Command sees fit to gift upon us. There has been talk about allowing ship’s commanders a word in selecting their own crew, but so far, nothing has happened in this direction. Until then, we have no other chance than to wait. Picard out.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Finished with his annoyed log entry, the captain of the _Enterprise_ rose from behind his desk and fetched the half-empty bottle of calvados from his cupboard. He didn’t usually drink while on duty, but sometimes the secrecy of Starfleet HQ frustrated him beyond endurance. As the commanding officer of Starfleet’s flagship and a French aristocrat whose family had some influence in the planetary government of his homeworld, he expected to be given all the details he might need to get the job done.

 

Unfortunately, some of the more conservative members of Starfleet Command were still suffering from the delusion that the officers serving in the front line – the same ones that kept the Federation safe – didn’t need to be bothered with unnecessary knowledge. Admiral Nakamura, a great admirer of his people’s samurai tradition (or how he interpreted it anyway) was one of those less than practical oriented people.

Well, it couldn’t be helped. Luckily for Picard, he had an android as his Science Officer; an intelligent machine that could converse with computers on their own language and was therefore damn hard to catch when hacking any secret databases. He’d find out everything they needed to know – and then some.

Reassured that they’d be able to do the job, despite the outdated mentality of certain superior officers, Julien Picard allowed himself a _very_ small glass of calvados, removed the evidence from sight, and returned to the bridge.

He could not know that things were about to take an unexpected – and highly unpleasant – turn within minutes.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
While the _Enterprise_ -G, the flagship of Starfleet – not to mention the pride and joy of the entire Admiralty -, continued her route to the rendezvous point with her sister ship, both the command staff and any simple member of the two thousand crew used the blessedly uneventful journey to pursue personal interests.

There were always exceptions, of course. Ten Forward was fairly crowded, giving Guinan and her assistant, a shady human of indefinite age and very questionable morals named Ben, more work than usual. There was great traffic in the ship’s beauty shop, too. Both Bolian barbers were flattering around like excited blue hoverballs, their hands waggling almost as fast as their tongues. There was also quite the queue sitting before Keiko Ishikawa’s cosmetic salon, the ladies of various species waiting patiently for their turn while Doctor Selar was receiving her weekly treatment against the – for her – way too wet atmosphere of the ship.

Ships Counselor Natasha Yar was working, too. Such quiet times always reminded the crew that they had problems. Problems that had to be put aside in times of crisis – only to resurface with vengeance, once said crisis was over.

“…and no matter what I might try to catch his attention, he behaves as if I wouldn’t exist at all. Why is it that all people only take me seriously when they have a mathematical problem that not even Commander Data is able to solve? I’m almost eighteen, and still people keep treating me as a baby!”

Currently, the counselor was sitting ramrod-straight in the comfortable armchair of her office, without touching the back of said chair, as it was proper for a well-bred young woman of Betazed, and as she was listening to the girl on the other side of her desk, frustration began to overwhelm her, slowly but inevitably. The girl was the sort of fine-boned, striking beauty seldom seen even in the 25th century, with a flawless, porcelain skin that seemed almost translucent stretching over high cheekbones, with emerald eyes that sparkled with spirit and an untamed temper, and with thick, deep red hair that cascaded down her long, graceful neck and bare shoulders to her waist. Just looking at her could case a heavy bout of inferiority complex in any other woman.

“Just because Mom thinks I make her look old, other people wouldn’t need do coo with me like with a toddler,” the girl continued, with the honest anger of misunderstood teenagers. “Commander Ryker the last, of all people! Were he not chasing after that female beast like a lovesick poodle, he could notice that I’m not a child anymore.”

There was doubtlessly some truth in _that_. The tiny chiffon wonders the girl preferred to wear (at the moment an emerald green one, matching the colour of her eyes), made it very clear that – at least where physical attributes were concerned – she was a woman already; the pretty _art deco_ -features and the large, sensual mouth, too, made her look older than her actual age. Her clothes usually contained two rows of broad frilling, one of these covering her bosom, the other running diagonally from one hip to the other knee, and the two rows were held together by some form-hugging, tricot-like middle part. She hadn’t been willing to wear anything else, ever since she had turned thirteen.

Natasha Yar sighed. In her costume, containing a long, straight skirt and a buttoned-up frilled blouse of the same eggshell-like colour, she felt hopelessly colourless and old, facing the radiant, aggressive youth of the girl. Although there was only a fifteen-year age difference between the two of them, Leslie Crusher always made her feel as if she had been embalmed alive. After a session with Leslie she could have used a therapist herself.

Dr. Beverly Crusher, Chief Medical Officer of the _Enterprise_ (and Leslie’s mother), was a personal friend of the counselor’s, so Yar did anything in her power to help her keep the girl away from the First Officer. Not that Will Ryker would have shown any interest in Leslie’s almost obsessive crush, in the contrary: he found new and creative ways to avoid the girl every day. Which only made Leslie madder, of course. She couldn’t understand how it was possible that Ryker was attracted to the ill-mannered Security Chief of the _Enterprise_ instead of her.

Truth be told, Yar didn’t understand it either. William Bonaparte Ryker was an ambitious officer, but he also was a womanizer, a gambler and a lover of good food and excellent drinks. And though he loved his saxophone, his Persian cats and women of any age, status and species, above all he wanted to become the captain of his own ship, as soon as possible. He wanted to retire as an admiral at the age of fifty (or possibly sooner), to be able to enjoy his considerable wealth acquired through his gambling casinos on Argelius.

What he saw in the thirty-five-year old, small and thin “Macha” Hernandez, who was said to take the phaser rifle with her to bed, should Worf happen to pull a night shift, was one of the great mysteries of the ship’s life. Granted, Hernandez looked like a Byzantine Madonna – until she opened her mouth. Unfortunately, she rarely shut up, and what she had to say was not meant for sensitive ears.

Hernandez didn’t only serve on a post usually filled by men, being the Chief of Security on Starfleet’s flagship; she also behaved as a man; a particularly aggressive one. Many people underestimated her because of her deceivingly slender frame – these people learned how wrong they had been on the hard way. She barely reached to Yar’s shoulder, but she was all steely muscle and could break anyone’s shin with a single kick, Worf including. Her legendary stamina was – among other things – the result of Klingon martial arts training; her relationship with the ship’s Klingon tactical officer was more than purely romantic (if someone could use the word “romantic” concerning her at all). Given to the mix the fiery Latino tempers caused all people to get out of Hernandez’ way when she was having a bad day... which meant practically always, as Hernandez tended to have bad days only.

Despite her pretty face and dark, exotic eyes, Yar couldn’t really understand how she managed to charm Ryker out of his wits so completely. The counselor had served with the First Officer on the U.S.S. _Hood_ already, so she knew all too well that Will usually preferred the young, exotic, sensual and ruthless girls like Leslie. Bev and Yar couldn’t be thankful enough for the existence of Hernandez (as the Chief Medical Officer still felt too young to become a grandmother), but they didn’t understand it. It was simply not like Ryker, to miss an opportunity like this.

“... and when I suggested having a picnic on the holodeck, he chickened out, telling me that he had an important meeting with _Data_ ,” Leslie complained, obviously offended beyond measure.

Yar sighed again. The emotional patterns of the girl showed that she was nearing the end of her rant, and the counselor now had to try again to appeal to Leslie’s common sense. Unfortunately, this was the only topic where the girl’s brilliant mind mercilessly refused to cooperate, every single time. Which, even more unfortunately, didn’t save Yar from the useless effort of trying the impossible.

“Leslie,” she began, looking desperately for words that would not make the girl even madder, “you have to face the fact that... “

The beeping of the com system saved her from the torture – this time.

“Picard to Yar,” the deep sonorous baritone of the captain came through the speakers.

Yar touched the communicator pinned onto her blouse. “Yar here.”

“Counselor, please come to the bridge. I need you to assess an unexpected situation here with me.”

“On my way, Captain. Yar out.”

She rose, smoothing the skirt on her hips, and gave her visitor an apologetic look. “I am sorry, Leslie, we’ll have to continue another time.”

Leslie shrugged (nearly jumping out of her clothes from the gesture) and raced out without a parting word. She only agreed to partake these sessions because her mother insisted anyway. She stepped into the nearest turbolift, stared at the ceiling for a moment, then her face lit up.

“Cosmetics,” she said, and the ‘lift got into motion.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Less than a minute later, Natasha Yar, too, left her office, freshly groomed and made up for the Bridge. Unfortunately, these efforts didn’t give her appearance much more colour. But that wasn’t something she could change. She’d tried once to colour her blonde hair red – and never again. The results had been beyond disastrous; pink hair was not something her patients would find trust-inducing.

“Close your mouth, Ensign, you don’t look very attractive this way,” she warned the well-built, handsome security guard automatically (and with some hidden envy), as the young man was still gazing goofily in the direction where Leslie had left. Then she stepped into the other turbolift cabin and gave her direction, “Main Bridge.”

When she reached the bridge, the rest of the command crew was already there. She took the seat reserved for her on the captain’s left, asking her in a low, discrete voice.

“Has something happened, Captain?”

“I’m not sure,” Picard replied, also quietly. “Communication between us and the _Copernicus_ is blanked out… has been in the last nine hours, in fact. At first we thought it would be a temporary technical problem, but…”

“Captain,” Commander Data, their android crewmember, swivelled around with his chair to face his commanding officer, “I am picking up an automated distress signal from the _Copernicus_.”

Picard frowned. “That’s odd. Mr Worf, can you give us a visual?”

“Trying, Captain,” the Klingon towering at Tactical glared at his console as if he could intimidate it into working by sheer willpower – which was not entirely out of possibility. “Visual is coming up, sir.”

“Maximum magnification,” Picard ordered as a small image appeared in the centre of the main viewer.

“Maximum magnification, aye,” Worf manipulated the settings, and the image began to grow, until it filled half the scene; then it stopped. “That’s the best I can give you from such a distance, sir,” the Klingon said, without sounding even vaguely apologetic.

Picard nodded. “Scan the ship for life signs, Lieutenant.”

“Aye, sir,” Worf performed the task with his usual efficiency. He was an _extremely_ efficient officer. The characteristic Klingon single-mindedness prevented him from falling for possible distractions. “There are life signs, Captain; lots of them. However, the readings are providing odd contradictions.”

“What kind of contradictions?” Picard asked.

The Klingon shrugged his massive shoulders. “Cannot really explain, sir. I’ve never seen readings like these before.”

And that, considering Worf’s rather colourful career and the weird things he’d already encountered was saying a lot.

Picard turned to Yar. “Counselor, can you sense anything from the _Copernicus_?”

Tasha closed her eyes in an effort to focus. Picking up emotional signals from such a great distance wouldn’t have been easy even for a full-blooded Betazoid; and she, like always, was hampered by her human half. But she _could_ actually sense something… 

Strangely enough, however, the signals didn’t grow stronger as the _Enterprise_ was racing towards them with Warp factor Six – on the contrary…

“Captain,” she said, opening her eyes. “I can indeed sense numerous life forms, but many of them are growing weaker…”

“Dying?” Riker asked sharply.

Yar shrugged. “That would be the most logical explanation, yes. But there could be other reasons.”

“Hmmm…” Picard stared at the image on the main viewer thoughtfully. “Mr Worf, try to establish contact with the _Copernicus_.”

A human might have pointed out how futile such an attempt would be. However, obedience towards a commanding officer was ingrained in Klingons – perhaps even genetically encoded in their DNA. In any case, Worf simply did as he was told.

“No answer, Captain,” he reported a minute later. Nobody was surprised.

“Try to scan the hull for damage,” Ryker ordered. “ _Something_ must have triggered that automated distress call.”

“No visible damage,” Worf reported, after the surface scan had run its course. “However, the sensors have detected a repulsor field in the _Copernicus_ ’ cargo bay.”

“A repulsor field?” Riker said in surprise. “What for? Have they been attacked?”

“There is no sign of a battle going on,” Worf told him, sounding almost disappointed.

“I can’t see against whom they could be fighting anyway,” Picard said. “Granted, we are to meet the _Copernicus_ in a border zone, but there are no hostile powers on the other side of this particular border.”

“Still the crew of the _Copernicus_ is clearly in some kind of danger,” Data pointed out. “We need to determine the exact nature of that danger and consider the most logical means to counteract it.”

“Thank you, Mr Data,” Picard said dryly, “that is exactly what I’m planning to do. Ensign Haskell, increase our speed to Warp eight. Number One, call an emergency staff meeting into my ready room.”


	3. Haunted

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Daliwakans are a canon race. Their only representative, a Human/Daliwakan half-bred was the gigolo in Tom Paris’ Sandrine’s holoprogram. Ensign Hodel is “played” by Sendhil Ramamurthy, just for the exotic touch. Carli, the alien nurse, is “played” by Colin Morgan, better known as Merlin. And no, s/he’s not a J’naii. Not all androgynous species are necessarily bloodless.
> 
> Technical data of the _Oberth_ -class vessel are borrowed from the Ex Astris Scientia website. If I’ve misinterpreted anything, it’s not the fault of that excellent site. I’ve made the _Copernicus_ an _Oberth-class_ ship because it was said to be a science vessel. Feel free to disagree with me. The rest of the technobabble is from the “Next Generation Technical Manual”.

**CHAPTER ONE – HAUNTED**

The senior officers of the _Enterprise_ were an interesting bunch, to put it mildly. Starting with William B. Ryker, the most… _colourful_ personality that had ever served as an executive officer aboard a Federation starship. 

Born as the only son of a highly-respected civilian advisor of Starfleet Command, the “little Bonaparte” had left home (and Earth altogether) at the age of fifteen, and ended up on the pleasure planet Argelius as a saxophone player. At seventeen, he became the companion of an Argelian lady dancer twice his age. Three years later the woman died, leaving her considerable wealth (mostly in the form of pleasure palaces and gaming arcades, which she co-owned with her late mentor’s grown son, five years older than Ryker himself) to her young lover, making him almost disgustingly rich.

For some reason, however, Ryker decided that he wanted to join Starfleet after all, and went to the Academy, although he could have easily bought his own ship… hell, a whole _fleet_ of ships! Serving first aboard the U.S.S _Pegasus_ , then on the _Hood_ , he’d been assigned to the _Enterprise_ right after the ship had come out of the Utopia Planitia Shipyards. 

Despite his sometimes insubordinate behaviour, Picard liked him a great deal. While he was ready and willing to nail everything on two legs, males, females or genderless aliens, he was very reliable where duty was considered and worked well under pressure.

Unfortunately, the same couldn’t be said about the Chief Medical Officer of the _Enterprise_. Beverly Crusher wasn’t very good at dealing with the unexpected, and whenever a new problem presented itself, she seemed so clueless at first it could drive Picard up the walls. Without Dr. Selar’s unflappable Vulcan calmness in the background, Beverly would have drowned in chaos several times already. Given enough time, Dr. Crusher proved an excellent physician, but quick decisions weren’t her forte.

If one added to the mix Macha Hernandez, recently-promoted Chief Engineer Geordi LaForge, who still seemed a little uncertain about his new position but tried to hide it, and Tactical Officer Worf, who was staring sourly at the tabletop in front of him, as usual, one could easily realize that staff meetings never got boring aboard the _Enterprise_. Not even the colourless presence of Counselor Yar could bland the too many volatile personalities crowded into the same room, forced to make decisions each and every one of them could agree with.

Aside from the section heads, who were regularly present at the daily meetings, this time Transporter Chief O’Brien had been asked to join, and, of course, Counselor Yar, as always. Picard summarized the situation for them, then he looked at Data askance.

“Mr Data, are there any reports of what exactly is the _Copernicus_ doing out here?”

The android nodded. “Aye, Captain. They have been scheduled for a routine cartography mission, in order to keep the star maps of this region up-to-date. They are also searching for previously unknown life forms in the neighbouring systems. So far, the most they have found were some algae.”

“I see,” Picard looked at Worf. “Do all attempts at contact still prove futile, Lieutenant?”

“No changes, Captain,” reported the Klingon.

Picard shrugged. He hadn’t really expected anything else, but it was worth trying.

“Counselor, have you been able to pick up any emotions from those aboard the _Copernicus_?” he then asked.

Yar nodded, her naturally pale face becoming ghostly white with distress.

“Hunger,” she whispered. “I’m experiencing an incredible sensation of hunger, something I’ve never really felt before on such level.”

“Perhaps there is a scarcity of supplies,” Dr. Crusher suggested, her pretty art-déco features mirroring great concern, “and it has resulted in a mutiny.”

Several people around the table suppressed a grin and Picard withstood the urge to roll his eyes – barely. As much as he loved Beverly, even he had to admit that she could be incredibly naïve sometimes – bordering on stupidity. At such times he really wondered how she had come so far in her chosen field, as half the time she seemed completely bewildered by each new thing.

Of course, it could have been just a clever role that she played to make others underestimate her. Most likely, however, she had very good friends in very high places. That, and capable co-workers who ironed out her mistakes in time.

“Do you really want to consider that possibility, Doctor?” Picard asked dryly.

Beverly had the grace to blush. “No, I don’t,” she admitted.” 

Fortunately, the others were more concerned with the task at their hands than with her hair-raising theories.

“We need to know what’s going on over there,” Ryker declared, stating the glaringly obvious as always; only Data was even worse than him in that area. “I’ll lead the Away Team myself.”

As _that_ was one of the primary duties of every executive officer, the declaration didn’t earn him any admirers. Picard simply nodded and asked the department heads for suitable candidates for the Away Team.

“I will go,” Data offered. “Should there be some sort of epidemics, I will be immune.”

“You might need me and my special vision, though, if there is a technical problem,” LaForge said. “And I’ll take Hodel with me. He’s my best diagnostic engineer, _and_ he’s half-Daliwakan, with the most robust immune system after a Vulcan or a Klingon.”

“And I’ll take Daro and Baldor,” Hernandez decided. “They’re both crack shots and excellent at hand-to-hand combat; should Dr. Crusher’s mutiny theory have any merit. Besides, there’s little their Vulcanoid constitution couldn’t deal with.”

“Baldor is Romulan,” Worf growled. “You shouldn’t take a Romulan with you somewhere where you might have to depend on them. Romulans have no honour.”

Hernandez rolled her jewelled eyes in exasperation. “Don’t give me that Klingon nonsense!” she snapped. “Yes, Baldor is a Romulan – born in a family that has been living in exile on Vulcan for three generations!”

“That doesn’t mean a thing,” the Klingon answered stubbornly. “Romulans are a patient people. They can wait.”

“Well, _I can’t_!” Hernandez replied impatiently. “And since Baldor is best suited for this job, I’ll take her with me. Period.”

“Fine!” Worf growled. “Be a fool! But don’t come to me, complaining, when she’s shot you in the back!”

“Oh, believe me, you’d be the last creature in the multiverse I’d _ever_ go to pour out my wounded little heart to,” Hernandez returned, dripping with sarcasm.

The others needed a moment to recover. The mere idea of Macha Hernandez pouring out her heart to _anyone_ was too weird to even imagine. There was a general agreement aboard the _Enterprise_ that she didn’t even _have_ a heart to begin with. Well, not beyond the biological necessity of said organ anyway.

“All right,” Picard finally said. “Make it so, Number One. Your Away Team leaves in twenty minutes.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
It spoke of the dedication of the _Enterprise_ crew to their jobs that the Away Team found together in Transporter Room Three less than fifteen minutes later. Only Chief O’Brien was there even earlier, that is, but _that_ was a given fact. During delicate missions, the transporter chief always insisted on operating the controls personally. This one was no exception.

This being a potentially dangerous mission, the two security guards chosen by Hernandez were armed with the heavier Type II hand phasers. They looked surprisingly alike, considering that Daro was a Rigelian male and Baldor a female Romulan. However, she wore her hair short-cropped, like the males of her species, and while she did possess the slim elegance that appeared to be typical for most Vulcanoids, she was not particularly pretty – or in any way feminine, for that matter.

The same could not be said about the med tech appointed to the Away Team. Carli, whose long and complicated name nobody could really remember, belonged to a species that was not a member of the Federation but had joined the officer exchange program of Starfleet, and came aboard the _Enterprise_ less than a year earlier. The others usually referred to hir as _he_ , because it was easier for them, but in truth s/he was neither male nor female. Or s/he was both, depending on one’s point of view, displaying male _or_ female characteristics when “in heat”, as s/he put it, depending on the gender of hir partner.

On the outside, s/he looked like a young human male around eighteen or twenty, of middle height and very thin, almost spidery, with long limbs and a narrow torso. Hir thin, almost triangular face sported killer cheekbones, a pair of large, luminous, dark blue eyes and ears that stuck out, elf-like, from hir smooth cap of short, thick and shiny black hair. With hir easy manners and mischievous nature, s/he had become very popular among the _Enterprise_ crew.

LaForge’s diagnostic specialist was just as much sought after. A gifted engineer in his mid-thirties, Hodel – which was the Anglicized version of his actual name – was the son of a Hindu mother and a Daliwakan father: a good head taller than O’Brien; slender, dark-skinned and almost devastatingly handsome, with wavy, ink-black hair that he wore just a bit longer than regulations would strictly allow. Fortunately for him, Geordi LaForge didn’t care about such minor transgressions as long as people did their jobs well.

Hodel also had a row of delicate ridges down the centre of his forehead, and pronounced skin above the eyebrows, but a lot less prominent than by full-blooded Daliwakans, which only enhanced his good looks. Small wonder that he already had two spouses back on his home planet, and – according to Daliwakan custom – he was entitled to have three more.

He was also a good pal of Carli’s, who seemed surprised to see him.

“Hi Mikal,” s/he exclaimed in delight, “you coming with us on this away mission?”

Hodel nodded enthusiastically.

“Yeah, I can’t wait. I’ve never been aboard an _Oberth_ -class ship before; not outside the Fleet Museum, that is.”

“They are interesting little vessels,” O’Brien said, putting the image of the external sensors on the viewscreen behind his console. “A bit crammed perhaps, but very functional. I’ve served on one right after graduating… it was quite a challenge, but I loved it.”

The other two watched the image on the screen with interest. The _Oberth_ -class ship was definitely of a strange structure, with two separate hulls connected by the nacelle pylons. Many of the standard features found on other Starfleet vessels weren't present. The nacelles seemingly lacked the normal Bussard collectors and blue warp field grill. The navigation deflector array was apparently missing, too. There might have been impulse engines, but they weren't obvious. One had to wonder how the ship managed to travel through space to begin with.

“That’s… unusual,” Hodel commented softly; as an engineer, he must have found the ship even stranger than the other two. O’Brien nodded.

“Yep; a fairly old design. This ship class came into service in the early 23rd century and has been refitted and modernized several times since then. It’s said that all _Oberth_ -class ships will be recalled as soon as the new _Nova_ -class can replace them as planetary science vessels.”

“Can you tell me anything about the inner structure?” Hodel asked.

“Sure,” O’Brien said. “It’s a very simple layout, actually. The upper section contains the living quarters, bridge and science labs. The bottom section contains the warp core and engineering. There's a turbolift shaft that runs through the pylons or the crew has the choice to beam to each section. The ship itself only requires a small crew to operate it.”

“How many crewmembers are we talking about?” Carli inquired, mentally checking the contents of hir emergency medkit.

“ _Oberth_ -class vessels generally have a crew of eighty,” O’Brien told hir.

“ _Eighty_ people on such a small ship?” Hodel stared at the viewscreen, completely baffled. “How do they fit in, and that with the required equipment, too?”

O’Brien shrugged. “As I said, it _is_ a little crammed. By a length of a hundred and fifty metres, there are only two decks within the saucer section, the upper one mostly occupied by the bridge itself. But we’ve managed just fine. One learns to live at close quarters if one has to.”

They were interrupted by the arrival of the rest of the Away Team, lead by Ryker, who – to general surprise – was accompanied by Worf. The Klingon was carrying no hand phaser but a heavy phaser rifle. Baldor’s faint smile hinted that she had an educated guess about the reason for their Tactical Officer’s presence as well as for the heavy weaponry.

Captain Picard had chosen to see off the Away Team personally, accompanied by Doctor Crusher, who was very obviously concerned about the possible dangers that could await the team aboard the _Copernicus_ – above all contamination.

“No need to worry, Doctor,” Chief O’Brien reassured her. “I’m beaming them over in a landing envelope.”

The term clearly didn’t ring a bell with the good doctor, as she blinked at the transporter chief in confusion.

“In a _what_?”

“An energy field which essentially provides an atmosphere and habitable living condition for all contained in it,” Data explained. “It will restrict our movements by sixty per cent, but it allows us to ascertain the situation and decide which risks we will need to take before actually doing so.”

“It will, if we finally move on,” Ryker interrupted him rather impatiently. “Get ready, people, we don’t have all day!”

The others followed him, taking their places on the transporter platform. Ryker looked at Picard.

“Permission to beam over to the _Copernicus_ , sir?”

“Permission granted,” Picard turned to O’Brien. “Beam them over, Chief.”

“Energizing,” O’Brien touched the controls, watching as they turned into golden columns of light and disappeared. Then he checked his readouts. “Transfer complete, Captain. They’ve rematerialized. The landing envelope is in place and working.”

The captain nodded. “Thank you, Chief. Keep a constant lock of them, just in case they might need an emergency beam-out. I’ll be on the bridge.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
The Away Team materialized in a darkened corridor of the other starship. As O’Brien had mentioned several times, the corridors _were_ crammed, but that wasn’t really surprising by a small saucer section of 39m diameter for the lower deck and 32m for the upper deck, respectively. As the same small saucer included the standard-sized bridge, a computer core, quarters for eighty crew members, three cargo bays and, of course, several science labs as it could be expected on a dedicated science ship, it was small wonder that the corridors offered barely enough room for two people to walk side-by-side.

“Are the environmental systems still working?” Ryker asked.

Data switched on his tricorder to check the environmental data and nodded.

“Oxygen levels are low but the air is still breathable,” he replied. “The tricorder cannot detect any know pathogens or any traces of potentially harmful radiation, either.

“That doesn’t rule out the presence of _unknown_ pathogens, sir,” Carli warned.

S/he made a very concerned impression, but considering that they were on a ship full of potentially dead people and that s/he was a short-range telepath, bombarded by the worried thoughts of everyone around hir, _that_ was not really surprising.

“I know that, Ensign,” Ryker answered tensely, “But I find the fact that we can’t move around freely more dangerous,” he touched his comm badge. “Ryker to _Enterprise_.”

“Go on, Number One,” Picard’s disembodied voice answered.

“Captain, Data couldn’t find any airborne threats,” Ryker reported. “I think the landing envelope can be dropped safely.”

“Very well,” Picard’s voice became more distant as he most likely turned away to speak through a different channel. “Chief O’Brien, drop the landing envelope,” then it grow louder again as he turned back. “Good luck, Commander. Keep me informed. _Enterprise_ out.”

In the next moment the air around them shimmered briefly, as the energy shield collapsed – and then it hit them like a salvo of Romulan photon torpedoes.

“By the elements, it _stinks_!” Baldor complained, not even her Romulan stoicism being up to dealing with the odour. “As if something had died here.”

“Or _someone_ ,” Daro added darkly. “Or rather several someones.” 

He tried to breathe through his mouth, while the ever-practical Carli fished a surprisingly large, brick red kerchief out one of hir many pockets and bound it before hir nose and mouth. Ryker gave the android an accusing look.

“I thought you said we could _breathe_ here, Data,” he snapped.

“Correct, sir,” the android replied blandly.

“How come that damn thing doesn’t tell you about the odour of this so-called breathable air?” Ryker demanded.

Data, not sharing the human sensitivity for bad odours, simply stared at him, blinking in confusion. Ryker gave up. Some things were not worth arguing about; and besides, they had a job to do.

“All right, people, let’s break up in three units,” he said. “Geordi, you and Hodel go to Engineering. Take Worf with you, for safety’s sake. Hernandez, you and your people check the science labs. Data, you and Carli come to the Bridge with me.”

“Aye, sir,” the others chorused, and the team broke up, the three groups heading in three different directions. 

None of them caught sight of the small cloud of glowing sparkles that followed them down the corridor for a while before it would vanish.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Back on the _Enterprise_ Bridge Beverly gave Picard an anxious look.

“What do you think they’ll find on the _Copernicus_ , Julien?” she asked, blithely ignoring the fact that they were on duty and she should have addressed him as _Captain_. “An alien infiltration? A mutiny? Or perhaps some terrible unknown illness?”

“Let’s hope it’s the latter; that way they’ll have _your_ help,” Picard replied encouragingly. “Stay on the bridge with us. You can direct the medical aspects of the mission from here better.”

Which would also give her co-workers the chance to do their jobs in peace, without her constant meddling and histrionics. But he was not going to voice _that_ opinion. Not in front of the ersatz bridge crew.

She nodded in agreement but still seemed troubled. Picard wondered about the reason for that – when finally a random piece of information surfaced in his mind.

“You’ve got a relative on board the _Copernicus_ , don’t you?” he asked, with as much compassion as he could manage. 

Which, to be honest, wasn’t very much. He was sick and tired of her emotional rollercoaster – ever since her daughter had grown out of her diapers, the good doctor had been suffering from the thought of getting older.

Beverly hesitated for a moment. “A relative by marriage only,” she finally admitted. “Robert Crusher, the brother of my late husband, serves as the chief medical officer of the _Copernicus_.”

Picard tried to be considerate of her feelings in this situation, but as he’d never met the man before, nor was he aware of his reputation, should he have any, all he could manage were a few vague commonplaces.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that,” Beverly said quickly. “I’ve always prepared myself for the worst; not that I’d want to lose another member of my family,” she added, her brave face crumpling in misery, making her look older than her actual age. “With Jack gone, Robert’s all that’s left of that part of my life… except Leslie, of course.”

Who was thoroughly fed up with her mother still treating her like a small child, Picard knew that. _Everyone_ knew it, as Leslie was fairly vocal about her feelings and didn’t really care who heard her outbursts.

It was understandable, of course. Leslie had come of age earlier this year, growing into a beautiful young woman, and young women wanted to be treated as adults at such age. Add to that the girl’s genius-level intelligence and one could easily understand why she was irritated with her mother’s behaviour.

“I’m sure Jack would have been very proud of his daughter, could he see what she has become,” the captain emphasized, feeling like a cheap liar, as they both knew that Jack Crusher was _not_ Leslie’s biological father. “She’s a great girl – give her a few more years and she’ll become an extraordinary young woman.”

That, finally, seemed to have been the right thing to say, as Beverly beamed at him gratefully.

“It’s such a shame that Robert and Leslie have never met, as he’s been away on deep space missions all her life,” she then added, her smile faltering again.

Picard patted her hand encouragingly, glad that they were no longer together. She was high maintenance on the best of days, with her constant need for reassurance, and he had a starship to command. _The_ starship; a vessel that needed all his attention.

“Hopefully, now they will have the opportunity to do so,” he said. “Why don’t you take Will’s seat, Beverly? You can follow the events more comfortably from there.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Meanwhile, aboard the _Copernicus_ Ryker, Data and Carli were heading towards the bridge. As O’Brien had told them, it occupied the upper deck of the saucer section. As they had originally arrived at a corridor in the crew’s quarters, didn’t have a long way to go, and so they could enter the bridge after about twenty minutes. It was barely lit and seemed abandoned.

“Try to re-establish standard illumination, Data,” Ryker ordered.

The android went to what was most likely the control station for Engineering and worked on the console for a moment. Gradually, the lights became somewhat brighter, but still didn’t reach normal level.

“I’m sorry, Commander,” Data apologized, “the energy levels are dangerously low. Twenty-five per cent is all I can give you.”

“I think it will be enough to see what we needed to see,” Ryker answered grimly.

The other two joined him as quickly as they could without injuring themselves in the twilit room, and soon they were surrounding the mummified body of a _Copernicus_ officer, half-lying in the command chair. He was wearing a burgundy uniform and the rank insignia of a captain on his collar.

“Presumably the commanding officer of the _Copernicus_ ,” Riker guessed. “He must have been the one who sent out the distress call,” he looked at Carli. “Can you tell me what happened him?”

“Well, he seems fairly dead for starters, sir,” Carli replied, examining the body with hir medical tricorder. “In fact, he looks like someone who’s been dead for quite some time. See? The eyes are open, but empty and hollow, skin colour is sallow, the cheeks are sunken and the lips pulled back from the teeth, as if the mummification process had already begun.”

“That is impossible,” Data said. “Nine hours and fifty-two minutes ago we still had regular contact with the _Copernicus_ and everything was all right on board at that time.”

“That may be so,” Carli returned, holding hir tricorder right above the skull-like head of the dead man that was covered with wiry black hair, “but there’s nobody home anymore. See? No neural activity whatsoever in the brain.”

“Could some chemical agent have been released into the ship’s atmosphere?” Ryker asked. Something that would speed up the mummification by, say, a factor of one hundred or so? This guy does look like those mummies dug out of the Valley of the Kings, in Egypt.”

The android changed the settings of his tricorder and re-checked the environmental data. Then he shook his head.

“If there is, it is nothing that would be known by Federation science, Commander,” he declared. “I cannot find anything unusual in the air.”

“Aside from the odour,” Carli added, “but I think we know now where _that_ came from.”

“Well, _something_ has killed this man,” Ryker said grimly, “and we need to find out what it was. Ensign,” he looked down at Carli, who was still kneeling next to the command chair, taking readings and transferring hir founds to the medical computers of the Enterprise, “I want a complete analysis of the body chemistry of this corpse. The tiniest anomaly could be helpful. We need to know whether we would endanger the medical personnel in sickbay if we beamed it over to the morgue; in that case they’d need to prepare the isolation labs.”

“Aye, sir,” Carli replied absently and continued hir work.

“Number One, do you have an identification on the body?” Picard, who was monitoring from the _Enterprise_ , asked.

Ryker looked down at the mummified corpse in regret. _What a way to end a Starfleet career!_ he thought.

“Well, the man wears a command uniform with a captain’s rank pips, so I must assume that he is… _was_ … Captain Ahrens, the commanding officer of the ship,” he then said. “It is a human male in any case, and the colouring seems to fit. As for the right age – it’s hard to tell with a mummy. The facial structure has also changed so much that a visual identification won’t be easy. There’s always the DNA-test, of course.”

“Commander,” Carli interrupted them. “I’ve just discovered something… disturbing.”

“Define _disturbing_ ,” Ryker said.

“Well,” the med tech looked up to him, hir face stark white with shock, “I _do_ find it disturbing that this man’s body contains absolutely no blood. _Highly_ disturbing, in fact.”


	4. Hunger

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Terakans are not a canon species. I got them from the famous T-name generator.

**CHAPTER TWO – HUNGER**

At the med tech’s report, Ryker furrowed his brow. 

“Are you telling me that we are dealing with a case of vampirism here?” he asked doubtfully.

Carli shrugged. “There _are_ species, even sentient ones, that live on blood exclusively. Terakans, for example, breed a dozen different subspecies of warm-blooded rodents for culinary purposes only.”

“Yes, but they cook or bake the blood before consuming it,” Ryker, who’d had the questionable pleasure of visiting the Terakan homeworld several times, pointed out.

“They do so _now_ ,” Carli replied. “I’m sure they didn’t start that way. And there may be other species that would reject the idea of destroying a great percentage of nourishments through the cooking process.”

“Theoretically, that is possible,” Data agreed. “However, I must point out that a species that has already reached a technological level that would enable them to faster-than-light travel is unlikely to fall over other sentient beings and kill them, just to consume their blood. It is all very strange.”

“No kidding, Pinocchio,” Ryker said. “We should check the individual stations while Mr… while _Ensign_ Carli finishes the analysis. Perhaps we can find an explanation for what’s happened here. Try to download the log entries from the last, say, ten hours to your tricorder and transfer them to the _Enterprise_. We need _facts_.”

Data obediently sat down to the console of the operations officer, this being his own place aboard the _Enterprise_ , only to find it burned out and blackened beyond repair. A glance at the flight control officer’s instrumental board revealed him the same.

“Commander,” he said, “both ops and conn controls have been destroyed by phaser fire. Thoroughly. Nothing here is even partially salvageable.”

“The same here,” Ryker answered from Tactical unhappily. “The only things that are still functioning are the environmental controls at the engineering station. Try the library computer; _something_ must have survived the destruction. Federation technology is nothing if not redundant.”

“That is correct, sir,” Data tried his luck with the library computer interface, but to no avail. “However, the person – or persons – that destroyed the Bridge obviously knew what they were doing. All interfaces are physically terminated; not even I can gain access to the databases. The pathways simply no longer exist.”

“I see,” Ryker touched his comm badge. “Ryker to _Enterprise_.”

“Go on, Number One,” Picard answered.

“Captain, it’s impossible to download the _Copernicus_ ’ logs from the Bridge,” Ryker reported. “All the Bridge consoles have been destroyed, beyond even Data’s abilities to gain access. We’ll have to try from another area.”

“It’s your call, Number One; handle things at your discretion,” Picard said. “What about the corpse you’ve found? Can we beam it over to the morgue?”

Ryker looked at Carli. The medic shook hir head; a gesture s/he picked up from hir human crewmates.

“I’d not recommend it, Commander. The body contains no human blood, as I said; it’s almost completely dried out. But…”

“ _Almost_ completely?” Ryker repeated, having the nagging feeling that he wouldn’t like the explanation.

Carli nodded. “Yes, sir. What little liquid there still is in the late captain’s veins, it’s a fluid of unknown nature.”

“Organic?” Data asked.

“Yes, but a composition I’ve never come across,” Carli replied. “In any case, it contains no human haemoglobin at all.”

“That’s not good,” Ryker stated the obvious. “Let’s see how the others are doing,” he touched his comm badge again to switch channels. “Ryker to Hernandez. Macha, the consoles on the Bridge have all been destroyed. What about the science labs?”

“It’s pretty much in the same boat, as far as I can tell,” Hernandez replied grimly. “Whoever did this, they were either very determined to cover their track – or completely insane.”

“I don’t know which possibility makes me more uncomfortable,” Ryker sighed.

“Neither do I,” Hernandez agreed. “With your permission, Commander, I’d like to rejoin your unit. There’s nothing for us to find in the science labs; they’re all abandoned.”

“So is the Bridge, save for the captain’s corpse,” Ryker told her. “Perhaps you’re right. Under those circumstances it would be safer to stay together.”

“My thoughts exactly,” Hernandez said. “I’ll send you Baldor, just in case, and we’ll all meet in Engineering.”

“Good idea,” Ryker said. “If anywhere, in Engineering we may find the means to do some repairs and access the ship logs. Especially with Geordi and Data working in tandem. We’ll make our way down as soon as Ensign Baldor arrives.”

“She’ll be with you in five minutes,” Hernandez promised. “See you in Engineering, sir. Hernandez out.”

“Commander,” Data left the useless library computer console and walked over to Ryker’s side, “it would be perhaps prudent to check on Geordi and Worf before we go down to Engineering.”

“It certainly can’t hurt,” Ryker agreed, switching channels again. “Ryker to LaForge. Geordi, how’s things down there?”

“Worf here, sir,” the Klingon’s deep voice answered. “I was monitoring your conversations and must tell you that Engineering is in the same shape as the rest of the ship. Although Lieutenant LaForge says he and Ensign Hodel might be able to repair _some_ of the consoles. Apparently, the attackers did a somewhat less thorough job here than on the Bridge.”

“Are you sure it was an attack?” Ryker asked doubtfully. “We’re tending towards the theory of some sort of contamination ourselves.”

“Well, we can’t be one hundred per cent sure, of course,” LaForge said. “But my VISOR is picking up the infrared afterimages of bodies lying on the floor and over chairs. By now, though, everyone who had been in the room is gone.”

“Where the hell have they gone to?” Ryker asked in bewilderment.

“No idea; but if they’d been killed by some weird alien disease, they couldn’t have stood up and left,” LaForge replied grimly. “ _Someone_ has removed those corpses from this room, and…”

“…and they must have had a reason to do so,” Ryker finished for him. “All right, Geordi. Macha and I have decided to join you guys in Engineering. Sit tight until the cavalry arrives.”

“We will, Commander. I wouldn’t think of…” LaForge trailed off, and they could hear his surprised comment, clearly meant for Worf. “What the hell was _that_?”

“I don’t know,” the Klingon answered from afar. “It’s gone now.”

“Geordi, what _have_ you seen?” Ryker demanded.

“Nothing, Commander,” LaForge answered uncertainly. “It was probably just a visual trick. Illumination isn’t the best down there.”

“Geordi,” Ryker pressed. “What. Have. You. Seen.”

“It was like a small cloud of glowing sparkles,” LaForge admitted reluctantly. “For a second or two it was there; then it was gone.”

“Just like those dead crewmembers from Engineering,” Ryker commented slowly.

“Well… yes, I suppose,” LaForge allowed. “But it might have been just a trick of light, as I said.”

“Not if they’ve both seen it,” Data supplied. “Their vision is different; they would not have fallen for the same trick of light.”

“Agreed,” Ryker said. “Well, hold on, you two. We’ll be with you in twenty minutes or so. Hernandez’ unit is already on its way.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Aboard the _Enterprise_ Counselor Yar was feeling increasingly unwell. The signals coming from the _Copernicus_ affected her so much that she had to lie down on the couch of the captain’s ready room – a situation she was not entirely unfamiliar with, although in other cases the reason for doing so was usually much more pleasurable.

“What do you exactly feel?” Picard asked in concern.

As a rule, Yar could deal with the emotions of other people well enough; mostly because she was so emotionally suppressed herself. For the first time since he’d known her, though, she now seemed completely overwhelmed.

“Hunger, mostly,” she replied trying to focus despite her blinding headache. “Sheer insatiable hunger. But there’s also fear, anxiety, death… a fight for survival – and something that cannot even be described as human.”

“Does the _Copernicus_ have any non-human crewmembers?” Picard asked.

Doctor Selar, who’d come up from sickbay to treat Yar’s migraine while Beverly was happily playing with the life sign detector, trying to set up a population map of the _Copernicus_ , shook her head.

“No, Captain; it is a homogenous crew. Their mission has partially been sponsored by a private consortium, and the sponsors insisted on an all-human crew.”

“Why would they do that?” Picard asked, wondering if every Vulcan was so well-informed about Starfleet-related trivia or only those he’d met during his decades-long career.

“Out of business interests, most likely,” Selar replied. “If they’d find anything that could be used for mass production, say, a new and exotic ingredient for food, that way the consortium could stake claim without a lengthy – and costly – legal fight over ownership.”

“A legal fight over some alien _spice_?” Picard shook his head, bewildered.

Selar didn’t exactly shrug – no self-respecting Vulcan would ever do _that_ – but it was a close thing.

“There are still quite a few civilizations that find replicated food unacceptable; either out of religious convictions or simply because they think that it lacks the proper taste. Food import to such worlds is a highly profitable branch of interplanetary trade.”

“Profitable enough to sponsor a routine star-mapping expedition of Starfleet, in the hope of finding some new foodstuffs?” Picard still had a hard time to believe that.

“Apparently yes,” Selar answered. “Or else it would be illogical for them to do so.”

Picard could have imagined a dozen other, much more plausible reasons for a private consortium sponsoring a Starfleet cartography mission. None of those possibilities made him truly comfortable. Before he could have voiced his suspicions, though, Beverly bounced in.

“I’ve finished the population map of the _Copernicus_ ,” she announced proudly. “The largest concentration of life form readings is on the lower decks.”

“ _Where_ on the lower decks?” Picard tried to clarify. The lower decks meant half of any ship, after all.

“In Medical,” Beverly told him.

It actually made sense, if they were indeed dealing with a contamination. People _would_ go to Sickbay for treatment. But what if it was something else?

“Could those life signs be identified as human?” the captain asked.

Beverly shook her head. “No. They’re still too weak and diffuse for a clear identification. But they’re definitely concentrating in Medical.”

That piece of information didn’t serve to ease Picard’s concerns; on the contrary. Life signs that couldn’t be identified beyond doubt as human, aboard a ship with an all-human crew, were _not_ a good thing in his estimate.

“Commander Ryker needs to hear of this,” he said. “Doctor Selar, I leave Counselor Yar in your capable hands. Call me if she happens to find out more. I’ll be on the bridge.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Unfortunately, Ryker was not in the best position to discuss the possible meaning of those life form readings with his commanding officer at the moment. They’d wrapped up the investigation of the destroyed Bridge, and Carli was about to put a quarantine field around the dead captain, just in case, when s/he thought to have glimpsed something.

“Commander,” s/he called out softly, “something’s happening with the corpse.”

“Can you be just a little less vague, Ensign?” Ryker snapped.

“I’m afraid I can’t sir,” Carli lifted up the dead man’s hand, staring at it intently. “I think you need to see this with your own eyes.”

Ryker sighed in resignation and walked over to the command chair – where they both watched in amazement as the aforementioned limb began to twitch. It only lasted for ten or so seconds, and then the twitching stopped.

“What the hell…” Ryker is stunned.

“That’s a good question, sir,” Carli was almost as pale as the corpse itself.

“I thought you said this man was dead,” Ryker said accusingly.

“He _was_ , sir,” the med tech replied. “Deader than dead. In fact, this thing,” s/he lifted hir medical tricorder briefly, “still tells me he’s dead.”

“But he was _moving_!” Ryker was back in full Captain Obvious mode.

“Actually, only his hand was twitching,” Carli corrected, but that fact didn’t seem to put hir mind to ease.

“Could it have been some residual neural energy in the limb itself?” Data asked, accessing the medical database of his positronic brain.

“It could – in theory,” Carli allowed. “The only problem with that theory is that the tricorder did not pick up _any_ neural activities from the body. Not even automated ones.”

“What was it then?” Ryker asked.

“I honestly don’t know, sir,” Carli confessed. “I’m not a doctor, just a field medic. Perhaps Doctor Selar can tell more, once she’s examined the body. She’s a good neurologist.”

“Can we risk beaming the body over to the _Enterprise_?” Ryker didn’t like the idea. Carli shrugged.

“Can we risk leaving it here, sir?” s/he asked back. “We need _answers_. I’m pretty sure this dead man _has_ the answers, but I’m not the one who could get them from him. I’m sorry.”

Ryker waved off hir concern. “Not your fault, Ensign. Let’s put the late Captain Ahrens into that quarantine field, as you’ve planned, and have him beamed straight into the isolation labs. You colleagues will take care of the rest.”

He was about to contact the _Enterprise_ and arrange for the beam-out when an alarmed voice cried out.

“Commander, take care!”

He turned around just in time to see Baldor coming in, running, her phaser on the ready. Before he could ask her what was wrong, though, there was a movement on his side, and in the next moment _something_ sneaked out and wrapped itself tightly around his neck.

Tightly enough for his vision to become blurred. But even so, he realized with a shock that he was being choked to death by the supposedly dead captain of the _Copernicus_.

There was a flash of yellow and black as Data darted across the ruined bridge with superhuman speed to throw the corpse clear. However, the android had no time to consider _where_ he should throw it, and nearly hit Baldor with the dead man that promptly clawed the neck of the Romulan security officer.

Fortunately, just like their Vulcan cousins, Romulans were made of stern stuff. Ignoring the green blood that was seeping from her neck wound, soiling her uniform collar, Baldor tore away and kicked the corpse brutally in the midriff, sending it flying across the Bridge. Only then did she check the wound on her neck with her free hand, grimacing in pain and annoyance.

However, with that it wasn’t over yet. The dead captain got to his lifeless feet and started towards Ryker again. The commander fired his phaser, knocking the corpse back to the deck. Yet only seconds later, it was up again, moving in for the kill. 

“This is getting tiresome,” Baldor commented with a scowl.

She calmly set her phaser to kill and fired. The body finally disappeared, but it left a cloud of glowing sparkles in its aftermath.

“Hey, isn’t this what Geordi and Worf were talking about?” Ryker asked. “At least we have an educated guess now where all those dead crewmen from Engineering have gone.”

“Perhaps,” Carli replied noncommittally. “I think we shouldn’t breathe these things in, though.”

But the warning came too late. The sparkles surrounded them like dancing dust particles in the sunlight, and before long, they were coughing and choking.

“Off the Bridge!” Ryker ordered. “Move it, people!”

The other two hurriedly obeyed. By the time they reached the doors, however, the sparkles were gone.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
In the meantime, Ensign Hodel had climbed inside a console in Engineering and was attempting to rewire it, bypassing several broken circuits. The destruction here wasn’t complete, so he had reasonable hope to re-establish the broken connection with the main computer and restart the board systems – not to mention download the logs of the last ten hours and finally get some answers.

LaForge had gone down to the Warp core to see if it could be re-injected and made to work again. As things in Main Engineering seemed calm enough, Worf had found it prudent to go with the chief engineer, despite LaForge’s protests that he didn’t need a babysitter, while Hodel, working on crucial repairs, did.

However, the Klingon had disagreed.

“Commander Ryker and the others will be here shortly,” he had pointed out, “and security is on their way already. Ensign Hodel will be safe enough with them.”

“Go on, Lieutenant,” Hodel had been glad to get rid of the ever-scowling tactical officer; working with Worf glaring holes into his back was not a comfortable thing. “I’ll be all right here; besides, it’s only a matter of minutes.”

Thus LaForge and the Klingon had left, and Hodel continued his work, even whistling softly – until he felt a tugging on his leg. 

“Just a moment,” he called out, thinking that one of his shipmates wanted his attention. “I’m almost done here.”

In the next moment, however, he was viciously yanked out of the frame with such force that some wires he had been working with were actually ripped from the console. He landed on his ass halfway across the room – and found himself staring into the dead eyes of what appeared to be a half-desiccated mummy, wearing the black and gold uniform of the engineering division.

He froze with shock for one, all-deciding moment, giving the obviously dead crewmember the opportunity to move in and claw his face. The pain finally broke his shock; he screamed from the top of his lungs, then reached for his phaser and kept firing at the animated corpse until it disintegrated before his eyes.

As he slipped into unconsciousness with the numbing pain spreading rapidly all over his body, starting from the facial wounds, glowing sparkles enveloped him like a shower of golden rain.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Hernandez and Ensign Daro had been a mere hundred metres from Engineering when they heard Hodel’s scream – as the turbolifts weren’t working in this area, they’d had to jog down several decks. They were stopped by the sheer terror in the engineer’s voice for a moment… long enough for Ryker’s unit to catch up with them.

“That doesn’t sound good,” Ryker commented unnecessarily.

Hernandez didn’t waste any time to answer. She started running again, with Daro in trail. The Rigelian was demonically fast, but Data, with his superhuman speed, reached the door of Engineering before all of them, of course. Ryker, not being as fit as he actually should have been, was the rearguard.

Neither of them noticed when Baldor got off on her own and disappeared in one of the side corridors.


	5. Carnage

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you think Beverly isn’t behaving in-character, remember “The Naked Now”. When she realizes that Riker has carried an infected Troi to sickbay, her reaction is: “Oh God, you touched her – and you touched me!” Pretty clear where her priorities lay, at least at the beginning of the series. And since this story uses an older concept, I had her reverse to her earlier self, too.
> 
> And yes, I know that the Kobali won’t be encountered until Season 6 of Voyager, and that at this time the Federation knows nigh to nothing about the Delta Quadrant. But since Carli’s people aren’t a canon species, they could have knowledge the rest of the Trekkiverse hasn’t. *shrugs*

**CHAPTER THREE – CARNAGE**

Having finally reached Engineering, the remaining members of the Away Team gathered around Hodel’s unconscious form in deep concern. The changes were dramatic, especially in such a short time. The rich, dark skin of the engineer had turned to an unhealthy shade of grey, and his handsome face was disfigured by claw marks, of which blood was seeping.

“Do you think he’s been attacked by some dead crewman, too?” Ryker asked Data.

“Unknown, Commander,” the android replied, “although there is a probability of ninety-seven per cent that your theory is correct.”

“I guess you should have stayed with him, after all,” LaForge said to Worf quietly.

The Klingon’s only answer was an unhappy grunt.

Carli, in the meantime, had switched on hir tricorder and was now examining the claw marks on Hodel’s face.

“He is still alive,” s/he finally said, “and the facial wounds are slowly closing. But there’s something strange going on in his bloodstream. I don’t know what it is. We’ll have to make a full blood screening and a chemical analysis. I can’t do that here, and certainly not alone. He needs to be beamed back to the _Enterprise_ sickbay.”

“I’ll see to it,” Ryker touched his comm badge. “Ryker to _Enterprise_.”

“Picard here,” their commanding officer answered promptly.

“Captain, there’s definitely something very strange going on here,” the First Officer reported. “Captain Ahrens, whom we thought to be dead, suddenly got to his feet and attacked me. We had to disintegrate him – he just couldn’t be stopped any other way. Not much later Ensign Hodel, too, was attacked, presumably by another not-quite-dead _Copernicus_ crewman.”

“ _Presumably_ , Number One?” Picard echoed.

“We could find no evidence, Captain,” Hernandez chimed in. “But he’s got claw marks on his face, and his phaser had definitely been used. A lot. Ten per cent of its energy cell has been drained in mere moments.”

That surprised even the others. The energy cell of a Type II hand phaser should, in theory, have been able to supply the weapon with firepower for at least a standard week. Hodel must have been desperate to keep firing long enough to drain the cell that much.

“Terrified, most likely,” Carli said, picking up their random thoughts. “He’s burned a sizeable hole in the opposite bulkhead in the process.”

“Can he be questioned?” Picard asked.

“No, sir,” the med tech answered. “He’s unconscious, and his life signs are weakening. He needs to be taken to sickbay and hooked up on life support.”

To their shocked disbelief, it was the chief medical officer of the _Enterprise_ who first protested – very vocally – against that suggestion.

“Julien, we’re not even sure what infected the _Copernicus_ crew, _if_ we’re dealing with an infection at all,” she emphasized. “Whatever it is, and without further information Hodel may bring it to us. The entire ship could be contaminated; that is a risk we can’t, mustn’t take!”

“Are you suggesting, Doctor, that we leave him behind here to die?” Carli asked, hir voice sharp. “What about that oath you Federation doctors have to swear? The one about causing no harm and helping anyone who may need your help, no matter the personal consequences?”

“Are you lecturing me about the Hippocratic Oath, Ensign?” Beverly snapped indignantly.

“ _Somebody_ has to,” Carli returned coldly. “I know I’m just a med tech, and just a stupid alien from some backwater planet. But on _my_ backwater planet we don’t let our patients die, just because we might get what they have.”

“There must be a way to help Mr Hodel without endangering the rest of the crew,” Picard intervened, before the professional argument between the two medics could have deteriorated into a full-blown bitch fight. “Doctor Selar, do you have a suggestion?”

“Indeed, Captain, I do,” the calm, even voice of the Vulcan answered. “I suggest placing him into total isolation, with full sano-lock, and sixty days of observation. That would give us the chance to determine the nature of the contamination and search for a cure, while providing the safety of the crew.”

“Do we have the necessary equipment for that?” Picard asked.

“Well… yes,” Beverly admitted reluctantly. “The new isolation labs, recently established on the medical deck at Starbase 211, would do the trick.”

“In that case,” Picard decided, “have Mr Hodel beamed home, Number One.”

“Aye, Captain,” Ryker touched his comm badge to switch channels. “Ryker to Transporter Room Three. Mr O’Brien, lock on to Ensign Hodel’s comm badge and beam him directly to IsoLab One.”

“Transporter locked,” O’Brien replied only a moment later. “Energizing _now_.”

At the same instant, Hodel’s unresponsive body dematerialized, leaving only a small smudge of blood on the floor where his head had been.

“Transfer complete,” O’Brien reported. “The patient has rematerialized in IsoLab One and put under a quarantine field.”

“Thanks, Chief,” Ryker broke the connection and looked at the rest of his Away Team. “Well, people, let’s go to Medical and see what we can find there. Macha, your people go forth; the rest of us will follow. Mr. Worf, take the rear.”

Hernandez nodded brusquely and moved on, without bothering to acknowledge the order. The Klingon, however, wasn’t moving. He seemed to take count of the members of the Away Team, his wild eyes narrowing in suspicion.

“Where’s Ensign Baldor?” he demanded. “Where’s that treacherous Romulan _targ_?”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Dr. Selar, having donned a hazmat suit, did her Vulcan best to reach IsoLab One as soon as possible. She had developed a theory about the nature of the contamination aboard the _Copernicus_ ; a theory that was as logical as it was promising dire consequences. However, she didn’t want to cause a ship-wide panic before she’d have found any hard proof. There was a possibility of twelve point seven nine per cent that she was wrong, after all.

In case she was _right_ , she felt it the more necessary to reach the isolation lab quickly. Preferably before her direct superior. Like many others of her species, Dr. Crusher suffered from the very human inability of dealing with a crisis in a logical, collected manner. If she panicked, she’d cause more harm than she’d do any good – for the patient _and_ for the rest of the crew.

Because if Selar was right, they were about to face the greatest medical – and possibly political – crisis since the Federation-Cardassian war.

The turbolift finally reached the medical deck, and Selar stepped out into the corridor leading to the isolation area. Entering the observation room, from which both IsoLabs and the rooms of quarantined patients could be accessed, she felt a bout of very un-Vulcan-like relief when she saw that no-one had gotten there before her. So far, she had things under control.

This was one of the rare rooms – save for the personal quarters of the crew – with an actual window, and she stepped to the window for a moment to look out to where the Copernicus hung in the blackness of space. That was a sight she could never grow tired of: the unfathomable depths, their darkness broken only by the myriad tiny, gleaming dots of distant stars, burning with a steady, unblinking light that was not distorted by an atmosphere, as seen from the surface of any given planet.

She suddenly frowned, her thoughts coming to a grinding halt. Something was not right. Every schoolkid knew that the stars were _not_ supposed to sparkle in the vacuum of space. And yet there was a thin trail of sparkles, seemingly transferring the distance between the two starships…

Thinking quickly as only a Vulcan could, Selar hurried to the comm unit on the wall and hit the button.

“Engineering, this is Doctor Selar. I require a Level Four repulsor field to be put around the entire ship, and that within six point four seconds. This is a medical emergency of Code Red.”

“Repulsor field established,” Lieutenant Clancy, LaForge’s second, answered almost immediately. “What’s going on, Doctor?”

“I cannot answer that question just now,” Selar replied. “I will have to study the tactical protocols first. But I definitely saw _something_ leaving the _Copernicus_ and approaching the _Enterprise_.”

“What was it?” the engineer asked, her curiosity awakening.

“Insufficient data, I am afraid,” Selar replied. “As soon as I have anything, I will make the facts available on the shared computer boards. Thank you for your assistance, Lieutenant. Selar out.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
She had barely terminated the connection when Dr. Crusher stormed into the observation room, also in full hazmat suit.

“Well, where’s Hodel?” she demanded.

“The patient is in IsoLab One, where he is supposed to be,” Selar answered evenly. “Please calm down, Doctor. In your current state of mind your excitement would colour your observations, and _that_ is something we cannot afford.”

Beverly pouted, but she had to admit that Selar was right. So she tried to pull herself together before entering the isolation lab. Fortunately, the complicated airlock system, designed for the exact purpose of keeping the air in the labs – and all pathogens it might carry – from getting out, slowed down the access to the lab to almost two minutes, allowing her to gather her wits.

Transporter quarantine protocols were set so that by beaming a potentially contagious person into the isolation labs the clothing of the patient would be rematerialized separately, in a sealed container. Consequently, the seemingly lifeless body of Hodel was now lying on the biobed in all its unveiled glory, like on the day he was born – revealing some usually hidden yet significant differences between human and Daliwakan male anatomy. Differences that Beverly caught herself eyeing in a somewhat unprofessional manner.

“Save for the claw marks on the face, the body seems undamaged on the surface,” Selar stepped closer to the biobed and started the medical log, studiously ignoring the less than professional behaviour of her superior officer. “However,” she glanced at the readings that appeared on the screen above the bed, “temporary blood screens show a five point seven six per cent decrease of the haemoglobin level in the patient’s blood; reason so far unknown. A complete analysis of the blood gases and blood chemistry is needed to…”

She couldn’t finish her sentence, as the frightened shriek of Beverly interrupted her. Following the shocked stare of her superior, the Vulcan saw Hodel move his hand and scratch an itch on a spot nine out of ten species would have considered private. _Including_ humans _and_ Daliwakans. Then the hand went limp again and Hodel gave no sign of regaining consciousness.

“Interesting,” Selar commented languidly. “It is obvious that – despite the coma-like state of the patient – certain automated reactions of the body are still working.”

“Or it could be just some residual impulse, stored in the neurons,” Beverly suggested, “like the final twitches of an amputated limb.”

“It could, were the patient dead already,” Selar allowed, “which he is _not_. The instruments still read neural activity in his brain… even though it _is_ weakening.”

“Well, let’s start with the complete blood screening,” Beverly said. “The soon we have the blood gases and the general changes in the body chemistry analyzed, the sooner can we determine the nature of the contamination.

However, half an hour later, when the diagnostic programmes had run their cycle, they still weren’t any closer to a solution than they had been at the beginning.”

“I can’t explain it,” Beverly admitted, reporting their findings – or rather the near-complete lack thereof – to the captain. “Whatever it is that’s affecting Ensign Hodel, it’s neither a virus, nor bacterial. The medical database couldn’t come up with anything even vaguely similar.”

“So we still don’t know a thing about the source of the infection?” Picard asked.

“There’s only one thing that we _do_ know,” Beverly replied. “Whatever we’re dealing with has become intricately connected with the patient’s haemoglobin.”

“In which way?” Picard asked.

“It’s being destroyed at an alarming rate,” Beverly said grimly, “and rapidly replacing it by some alien fluid.”

“If the readings are correct, it is the same fluid Ensign Carli has found in the body of the late Captain Ahrens,” Selar added. “It drains the body from all other fluids and initiates a fast mummification process. Once the process is complete, all the victim can hope for is death.”

“I never thought I’d hear something like that from a Vulcan,” Picard said, clearly startled.

“Well,” returned the Vulcan in question with extreme dryness, “I have reason to doubt that the alternative would be desirable; even for humans, with their irrational fear from death.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Aboard the _Copernicus_ , the remnants of the Away Team were making their way to the ship’s medical deck. With the turbolifts out of order, it was a rather long and tiresome way that required a lot of jogging down corridors, squeezing themselves through Jefferies tubes, which – according to LaForge – provided a shortcut to the next sector, as well as climbing up an endless number of decks on the narrow steel ladders of the maintenance tunnels.

By the time they reached the right deck, even Worf was breathing heavily. LaForge and Carli were covered in sweat, and Ensign Daro seemed a little greener than usual, which was the Vulcanoid version of a red face. Only Data and Hernandez were unaffected; the former for obvious reasons, the latter because she was tough as nails and did a lot worse in order to keep herself in form on a daily basis.

“Commander,” the android announced, “I am picking up the signal of Ensign Baldor’s communicator. She seems to be within the medical area; right where Doctor Crusher’s scans showed the greatest accumulation of life signs.”

Ryker, who was also sweating profoundly, slowed down to catch his breath.

“Can you establish contact?” he asked.

“Negative, Commander,” naturally – and quite annoyingly – the android was immune against any possible effects of physical extortion.

“It’s possible that she simply lost her communicator,” Carli guessed, but hir tone was doubtful. “Or she’s lost consciousness; she was wounded by that… undead corpse on the Bridge, too.”

“Or she’s already joined these… these…” Worf trailed off, seeking for the fitting insult and not finding any; none that would be derogative enough to describe his utter contempt towards the Romulan.

“Zombies?” LaForge suggested with a forced grin.

“What kind of species are we speaking about?” Carli asked in confusion.

“None,” Ryker answered, sharper than originally intended. “There’s no such thing as zombies. It’s just an urban legend.”

“Zombies are hypothetical monsters from human horror stories,” Data explained with scientific precision, blithely ignoring Ryker’s displeasure and Worf’s angry scowl. “They are mindless, reanimated corpses, with a hunger for human flesh; particularly for human brain, in rare descriptions. According to Haitian beliefs, a living person can be turned into a zombie by two special powders introduced into the bloodstream, usually via a wound.”

“What kind of powders?” Carli’s scientific curiosity was definitely piqued, despite their situation.

“One of them is called _coup de poudre_ in French and includes tetrodotoxin, among other ingredients; a powerful and often fatal neurotoxin found in the flesh of the Tetradontidae,” Data was warming up to the topic. “The second powder consists of dissociative drugs, such as datura. A person given these psychoactive drugs ends up bereft of consciousness and self-awareness, yet ambulant and able to respond to surrounding stimuli.”

“Sounds alarmingly familiar,” Carli decided, shivering. “Do you think that was what the dead captain tried to do? To infuse those drugs into our bloodstream?”

“If it was, then both Baldor and Hodel are lost,” Geordi said, “since they were both clawed.”

“Are there any specifics known about the working of the drugs?” Daro asked. He might be just a security guard, but he was a Vulcanoid, which meant a sharp, inquisitive mind.

Geordi shrugged. “Not really; at least nothing that could have been scientifically proven,” he replied. “Speaking of such things is still considered a religious taboo. All I know is that together, these two powders can induce a death-like state, in which the will of the victim would be entirely subjected to that of the _bokor_.”

“The _what_?” Ryker frowned, finding the discussion increasingly ridiculous.

“The witch doctor who’s created the zombie in the first place,” LaForge explained. “Who then uses them as slave workers, assassins – whatever she or he needs at the moment.”

“Foolish superstition!” the Klingon growled.

Carli tilted hir head to the side, bird-like. “I don’t know, Lieutenant. There are documented reports of a Delta Quadrant species named the Kobali, that procreate by harvesting the dead bodies of other species, reanimating them and make them one of their own kind. However, I don’t think the Kobali had made it to our area of space just yet.”

“Well, the spreading of the infection has alarming similarities with the zombie legend,” Hernandez said thoughtfully. “Who knows, perhaps even the most ridiculous legends do have a grain of truth.”

“But what is the carrier of the pathogen?” Ryker asked. “I didn’t see any powders when Captain Ahrens attacked me.”

“Are you sure about that, Commander?” Carli asked seriously. “Because I think we _have_ seen something. In fact, I think I’m seeing it in this very moment.”

And s/he stared at the cloud of glowing sparkles that was blocking their way to the main medical area.

“What are these… _things_?” Word demanded, glaring at the sparkling cloud as only a royally pissed (and very scared) Klingon could.

“I don’t know,” Carli confessed. “All I know is that we saw the same thing after the captain’s corpse disintegrated,” s/he looked at Ryker and Data for confirmation, and the two nodded.

“So, what are we supposed to do now?” Hernandez asked. “We must check what’s going on in Medical, and the only way there leads through this cloud.”

“I think Commander Ryker, Mr. Data and I should go,” Carli said. “The commander and I have already breathed in the… the sparkles, whatever they are. _If_ they are what spreads the contagion, we’re already infected; and Mr. Data is immune by default. The others should return to the _Enterprise_.”

“No way!” Daro declared hotly. “Baldor is in there, dead or alive; I’m not leaving her behind!”

“Neither am I,” Hernandez scowled. “She may be an arrogant bitch, but she’s _my_ arrogant bitch. I’m not leaving this wreck before I’ll know what’s happened to her.”

Ryker knew how to choose his battles; he didn’t even try to argue with Macha, looking instead of Worf, who gave him an indignant glare.

“I’m a Klingon, sir,” he announced. “For me, to stay behind when my commanding officer goes to battle…”

“All right, Lieutenant,” Ryker interrupted before Worf could have launched into a full-blown lecture about duty, honour and the way of the warrior as Klingons understood it. “We’ll go in together. Data, Geordi, take point!”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
The android and the man with the VISOR did as they were ordered, and they crossed the cloud of glowing sparkles, holding their breaths to avoid breathing them into their lungs if possible. Surprisingly enough, all they could feel was a slight tickling where their bare skin got in contact with he sparkles. After about ten seconds, they were standing in font of the main entrance to the medical deck; the cloud remained behind them for a moment, then it blinked out of existence.

“Doors are closed,” Geordi reported, checking the control panel next to them. It had been clearly cannibalized, with lots of torn wires hanging out of the wall limply like dead snakes. “Manual override won’t work, either, I’m afraid.”

“But sheer force might,” Ryker looked at Worf. “Lieutenant, you and Mr. Data should try to push them open.”

The Klingon and the android hurried to obey, and with much grunting and growling (on Worf’s side anyway) and with some help from the Rigelian security guard who was a great deal stronger than he looked, they managed to push the slide doors back into their slot within the double bulkhead.

Behind the doors, the main corridor of the medical deck was dark and empty. Ominously so.

“I can smell blood,” Worf growled low in his throat. “It comes from that room directly on our left.”

“One of the labs, according to the ship’s layout,” Data, who had said layout stored away in his positronic brain, supplied. “Should we check the room, Commander?”

“We have to,” Ryker replied. “We can’t take the risk of the crew, undead or alive, falling into our backs.”

“Agreed,” Hernandez calmly set her phaser to kill and ordered the others to do the same. “Worf, Daro, you with me. Data, stay with the others. Your reflexes are faster than anyone else’s; they might need your help.”

Before Ryker, who’d wanted to go in himself, could have protested, the three were gone… only for Daro to come back a moment later.

“You can come in,” the Rigelian said, relaxed. “The place has been trashed beyond repair, but otherwise it’s safe.”

Ryker was quick to follow and entered what had probably been some kind of blood bank or haematology lab, if the containers on the secured shelves were any indication. The place was in a shambles indeed – broken furniture and gutted machinery was lying around everywhere. The containers had been torn open and all blood was gone from them, but at least there were no dead bodies.

“Not _now_ ,” LaForge commented when Ryker expressed his relief over that small favour, “but a short while ago there were people in this area. My VISOR is picking up thermal readings; they have barely begun to fade.”

“Where have they gone, then?” Worf demanded.

“I haven’t got the faintest idea,” LaForge shrugged. “We’ll have to check all rooms in medical, one by one.”

“I suggest checking the larger areas first,” Carli said, “like the morgue or the examination rooms. The individual sick rooms, assuming the _Copernicus_ had any in the first place, would be too small for the crew to gather.”

“What could be funnier than a visit to the morgue on the ship of the living dead,” LaForge muttered to himself sarcastically. He seemed to take this zombie stuff far too seriously, Ryker found.

“You got a better idea?” the executive officer asked in a less than friendly manner. “No? Then let’s go. Hernandez, Data, you first. Worf, Daro, you on the rear. Move it!”

They moved, slowly, carefully, further into the medical area, until thy reached the door of what Carli thought would be the ship’s morgue. The slide doors stood half-open, due to the wide-spread system failure aboard, so that they could risk a look in.

What they saw there would be haunting them for the rest of their lives.


	6. Discovery

**CHAPTER FOUR – DISCOVERY**

The room behind the door was the morgue indeed, with desiccated corpses, like that of the late Captain Ahrens, lying on the autopsy tables. It was a mixed group of men and women, about a dozen of them, wearing torn and scorched duty uniforms of all three ship’s divisions – very obviously dead.

The mummification process seemed to be fairly advanced; again, just like in the dead captain’s case. The sight was not pretty. The only difference between them and their deceased commanding officer was that the fingers of _these_ corpses were covered in blood… in _green_ blood.

As if they had just torn somebody to shreds, before falling back into some sort of catatonic state. Somebody with copper-based blood.

Carli turned abruptly away, fell to hir knees and became violently ill. Not even having seen the dead captain attack Ryker repeatedly had prepared hir for this sight. Worf, whose nonexistent Klingon sensibilities were not bothered by a little blood – or by a _lot_ of blood, for that matter – growled something about weaklings not belonging into an Away Team under his breath, while eyeing poor Carli with the deepest possible contempt.

That earned him a sharp kick in the shin from Hernandez; so unexpected and vicious that he cried out in pain.

That, in turn, startled the others, and in the ensuing chaos, while everyone tried to figure out what was possibly happening, and Daro was making half-hearted efforts to soothe their upset medic, no one realized that the dead crewmembers were slowly getting to their feet, shuffling towards them in a badly coordinated, puppet-like manner – however, with alarming speed… for desiccated corpses anyway.

Geordi was the first to notice the danger, his VISOR alerting him about the movement of the bloody group, even though he was not consciously monitoring the room.

“Commander,” he said through gritted teeth, blanching to an alarming shade of grey, ”we’re having a problem.”

Ryker whirled around – and stopped as he saw the shock troop of the undead advancing towards them. He simply froze. After a decade and a half in Starfleet, this was something he’d not been prepared to deal with.

Fortunately for him, Hernandez’ reflexes were not lamed by the terrifying sigh. She grabbed Ryker with one hand and tossed him unceremoniously out of the morgue, while firing her phaser in the overall direction of the… well, the _zombies_. Urban legend or not, there was no better word to describe the nightmarish creatures that had not so long ago been the _Copernicus_ crew.

“Retreat!” she shouted. “Daro, pick up Carli. Data, cover the commander and Geordi. Worf, you with me!”

The Rigelian took his orders quite literally. He bodily picked up Carli, who’d just finished being sick, and threw hir over his shoulder, ignoring hir weak protests.

“Shut up and try to find a hold on me,” he said. “I might need both hands. Any idea where we should run?”

“The chief medical officer’s private office is twenty point seven metres down the corridor,” Data told him, dragging a still petrified Ryker after himself. “If we make it there and seal the doors behind us, the _Enterprise_ will be able to beam us out later.”

“Go!” Hernandez yelled. “We’ll cover you.”

She picked up Ryker’s phaser that had fallen to the floor from the nerveless hand of their executive officer and was now aiming both weapons at the zombies simultaneously, while trying to scurry backwards as fast as she could without falling over. On her side, Worf tried to do the same. Assessing the situation, Daro gave the zombies a parting shot, and then dashed off after the android, Carli still dangling from his shoulder like an overripe fruit, holding onto the fabric of his uniform for dear life.

The Rigelian’s shot failed to hit any of their undead pursuers squarely in the chest. It did, however, graze sideways one of the men wearing the rags of a blue sciences uniform, disintegrating one of his arms. The large, scorched wound caused by the shot was oozing that strange alien fluid that had replaced the man’s blood, but it hadn’t even slowed him down.

“Run!” Hernandez shouted in Worf’s direction, her voice an octave higher than her usual pitch.

She was firing randomly into the approaching mass of dead bodies, without much effect. Running backwards tended to make one’s aim less than perfect – even if one was Macha Hernandez, arguably the best shot in Starfleet Security. A calm, analytical part of her brain – yes, she _did_ have such abilities, thank you very much, how else would she have managed to become Chief of Security aboard the _Enterprise_ , of all ships? – was already planning some very advanced training methods that would prove helpful in similar situations.

Assuming that they survived the current mission, she added, while they were running for their lives.

To make things worse than they already were, Worf stumbled over something, lost his footing and fell onto his ass. Then, checking what it was that had brought him to fall, he threw his head back and released a howl so full of rage that even the zombies seemed to freeze for a second or two.

Surprised by that reaction – one she had only heard from him once – Hernandez risked a quick glance over her shoulder… and needed all her considerable willpower _not_ to throw up on the spot, although she’d seen her fair share of horrible things in her eighteen years with Starfleet Security.

Worf had stumbled over Baldor’s body. Or rather what was _left_ of Baldor’s body: a badly mutilated corpse, half-covered in the shreds of her security uniform, drenched in green blood.

The Romulan’s limbs had been torn out of their sockets; her head was tilted in a highly unusual angle – most likely a result of her neck having been broken – her face barely recognizable due to the multiple claw marks.

This was not the body of someone killed by a hostile alien. Or even by an entire group of hostile aliens. This was the body of someone mauled by a wild animal. Or rather by a whole pack of wild animals.

Hernandez, not taking her eyes off the pursuing undead, picked the comm badge from Baldor’s uniform and tossed it to Worf.

“You can apologize to her at the funeral ceremony,” she said, her voice harsh. “Now run!”

Overcoming his momentary shock, Worf aimed his phaser rifle at the dead woman in a command uniform who had almost caught up with them and fired. The mummified corpse of the lieutenant commander – presumably the executive officer of the _Copernicus_ – disintegrated, leaving a cloud of sparks in its wake.

“It’s no use,” Hernandez hollered. “With each one we shoot to pieces, we’re just spreading the infection. Let’s move on!”

They turned around and ran, speed being the main issue there, with the remaining zombies in hot pursuit. For a moment, Hernandez almost panicked; she could not remember what Data had said where the CMO’s office was. In fact, she ran past it, when a door on her left opened and the android yanked her into the room.

Daro did the same with Worf.

“Seal the doors,” Ryker panted, sounding just a little bit hysterical. “Quickly, before they could break through!”

Worf and Daro followed his orders, using their phaser rifles to weld the slide doors closed. Carli, having partially recovered, sat down behind the semi-circular desk of the ship’s doctor and tried to get access to the medical logs.

“Unlike the other equipment in Sickbay, this console seems undamaged,” s/he muttered absent-mindedly. “But it’s cut off from the energy flow, due to the ship-wide system failures. Mr LaForge, do you think we could hook up one of the tricorders to it, so that it would provide minimal energy? Just enough to download the medical logs.”

“What do you hope from that?” Ryker asked in surprise.

“Well, sir, if we can find out how this… his epidemics started, it might help us to find a way to end it,” Carli pointed out logically.

“Perhaps,” Ryker allowed. “It’s worth a shot anyway. Geordi, is there anything you can do to help with it?”

“The thing with the tricorder won’t work,” LaForge replied, thinking furiously. “The energy cell is too weak to power up the console.”

“What about one of the phaser power cells?” Hernandez suggested. “We can spare one weapon if we have to.”

LaForge shook his head. “Nah, they’re not compatible. They would burn out the circuits completely. But perhaps…”

“The torches!” Data said, already taking his from his utility belt. “If we hook up all our torches to the console, their energy will reactivate the medical computer for about twelve point three seconds.”

“And _that_ will be enough to download the medical logs into a tricorder?” Ryker asked rather doubtfully.

“Not into a tricorder,” Data replied. “They are not fast enough for that. We will download the logs directly into my brain and transfer the information to Ensign Carli’s medical tricorder afterwards.”

Ryker frowned. “How are you gonna do _that_?”

“With the help of a simple interface cable,” Data looked around for said item. “This place has not been smashed, so there should be one somewhere.”

“Assuming the Engineering staff has done its job properly,” LaForge muttered, climbing under the console where all sorts of ersatz parts should have been stored for possible emergencies… in theory, at least. A short time later he was emerging again, with a triumphant grin plastered all over his face. “It seems that they have.”

He waved a bunch of wires and cables at them. “C’mon, Data, let’s do this. Carli, would you mind collecting all torches for me?”

Carli didn’t, obviously, and the two with the technical know-how went down to their complicated task with great concentration, while Hernandez and Worf took up defensive positions, aiming their phasers at the sealed doors, just in case.

That the precaution had not been unnecessary was proven soon enough. Barely had Data and LaForge started the delicate wiring process, there was a loud _thump_ on the door. Then another. Then another. Then more and more, in no particular rhythm, as if a bunch of enraged zombies had been banging the metal with their fists.

Which, most likely, was exactly what was happening outside.

“Will they be able to break through the doors?” Carli whispered, hir fear palpable, and who could blame hir? The undead creatures, not a day ago regular Starfleet officers just like them, were terrifying.

“That is unlikely,” Daro replied, squeezing hir hand soothingly; the two were standing awfully close anyway, closer than the situation would require, Ryker found. “These doors are very hard to break; and we’ve sealed them, remember?”

“But we can’t know what kind of strength they’ve developed due to the infection,” Carli reminded him. S/he might have been terrified, but s/he was a medical professional to the bone. “If they’re turning into a different species, there’s no telling what they’d be capable of.”

“Don’t worry too much,” the Rigelian briefly groped the little alien’s backside. “Whatever may happen, I’ll protect you. I promise.”

Unlike a human crewmember who’d have interpreted Daro’s gesture as harassment, Carli seemed to find the intimate touch comforting. Which made Ryker wonder about the customs on hir planet. Of course, with a species that swapped gender at will, the rules of personal interaction could be fairly… adaptable.

Did that mean that Daro had a thing running with Carli, the First Officer wondered.

He was brought out of his not-quite-appropriate musings by a particularly loud _bang_ on the door. He glanced at LaForge nervously.

“Geordi, will it take long? I’d like to arrange a beam-out for us, as soon as possible.”

“Almost done, Commander,” LaForge replied, checking the short line of as-yet off torches carefully. “I just need to hook Data up to the console, and then we can give it a try. Data, can you…?”

“Of course, Geordi,” the android took the chair behind the desk and swivelled it around, facing away from the console.

LaForge stepped up to him, pressed his fingers against Data’s skull and simply lifted a patch of synthetic skin (covered with synthetic hair), under which the blinking circuits of the android’s positronic brain became visible. Well, not the brain itself; rather the complicated machinery housing it, but that was just semantics.

Ryker turned away when LaForge took one of the access cables and plugged it into the android’s skull unceremoniously. He always hated this part. Yes, when it came down to the basics, Data was a machine – even though… erm… a fully functional one, as the executive officer knew of personal experience. Being hooked up to other machines was perfectly normal for him.

But he was also a friend – _a friend with benefits_ , a mocking little voice in Ryker’s head commented – and seeing him like this was like seeing someone getting their head operated on publicly.

Unaware of their commanding officer’s mixed feelings, LaForge plugged the other end of the access cable into a socket on the fully computerized desk.

“Ready?” he asked.

Data nodded. “We can start.”

LaForge threw the makeshift switch and all seven torches went on simultaneously. They shone for approximately twelve seconds, their light weakening gradually – then they were burned out.

“That’s it,” LaForge said, disconnecting them with practiced ease. “Was it enough?”

The yellow eyes of the android became unfocused for a second as he was checking the results.

“Download complete,” he then replied. “If you connect me with Ensign Carli’s tricorder, I can transfer the data at once.”

“Hold that thought for later,” Hernandez said grimly. “We’ve got a more urgent problem right now.”

Following the line of her vision, they all could see that the sealed doors had become slightly dented under the onslaught of the determined zombies.

“But how can they do that?” Daro asked, baffled. “They’re just humans… and dead humans, at that.”

“Humans, under the influence of some unknown substance or hostile life form,” Carli corrected. “I told you we can’t predict what they’d be capable of in their current state.”

“Well, I think I’ve seen enough, personally,” Ryker said. “Time for us to blow this joint.”

Nobody protested, and he touched his comm badge.

“Ryker to _Enterprise_ , requesting an emergency beam-out, Captain. Preferably _now_.”

There was a short, ominous pause, and then Picard’s regretful voice answered.

“I’m afraid, Number One, that’s not possible right now.”


	7. Revelations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The medical explanations in this chapter are probably utter nonsense. I tired to make them as plausible as I could without actual knowledge; if I failed, I apologize.   
> Many thanks to for providing the details about zombification. *g*

**CHAPTER FIVE – REVELATIONS**

In the IsoLabs of the _Enterprise_ , Doctor Selar was growing increasingly frustrated. Granted, frustration was an emotion, and a very human one at that, therefore unbecoming of a Vulcan _and_ a scientist; but working with Doctor Crusher during a crisis was a hard trial for the collected, methodical Vulcan.

They had conducted numerous tests on the rapidly decaying body of poor Hodel, without getting any closer to the cause of his condition. What bewildered Beverly most was the alarming quickness of the decay, while the unconscious body was still displaying life signs.

“How could the mummification process advance at such a rate?” she kept repeating, slightly more hysterical every time.

Selar practiced herself in the unparalleled Vulcan virtue of patience.

“This is not your average corpse, buried in a twentieth-century Terran graveyard, Doctor, where the close proximity of other corpses would slow down the rate of decay considerably,” she pointed out. “It is a known fact that decomposition releases fat from the body, forming adipocere; which is the reason why corpses decay more slowly in traditional graveyards, than when buried well away from other corpses.”

“But Ensign Hodel is not dead yet,” Beverly argued. Selar nodded.

“True; the fact that decomposition would set on well before the ceasing of brain activity indicates the presence of a particularly aggressive virus or other pathogen. One that can affect brain activity _and_ behaviour, as the Away Team has seen in the case of the earlier victims.”

“Like the rabies?” Beverly asked doubtfully.

“That is an apt comparison, yes,” the Vulcan agreed.

“But Ensign Hodel doesn’t show any behaviour modification,” Beverly reminded her. “In fact, he’s slowly but inevitably slipping into a deep coma.”

“Theoretically, it would be possible that the pathogen, whatever it is, keeps the brain functions running until the transformation process is complete,” Selar theorized. “If you remember, Ensign Carli could not read any neural activity from the fully transformed Captain Ahrens – and yet the dead captain attacked Commander Ryker and nearly killed Ensign Baldor.”

“The infection seems to spread very quickly, though,” Beverly said, “and with a very short incubation period, compared to any viruses we currently know to Federation medical science. Also, it’s apparently blood-borne, which means that splatter as well as bites could spread the condition.”

“ _And_ claw wounds,” Selar added grimly. “Even though we must keep in mind that the pathogen could be airborne as well. We still do not know how exactly it is spread. Right now, I am not aware of any virus with such aggressive potential. Unless…” she trailed off, which made Beverly very nervous.

“Unless _what_? Selar, talk to me!”

“Unless we are not dealing with just a simple virus,” the Vulcan said slowly.

“What else could it possibly be?” Beverly snapped.

“A parasite,” Selar replied. “A very complex, very resilient parasite that feeds on haemoglobin – and on iron-based haemoglobin exclusively, or else we would have Ensign Baldor lying on a biobed also.”

“Is that one of your theories or do you happen to know of such parasites?” Beverly demanded. Virology was not her forte.

“There is only one such parasite that I could think of,” the Vulcan answered. “And if it is what I think it is, then we have a more serious problem than we thought.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
“ _Regulan bloodworms_?” Picard repeated in stunned disbelief. “How on Earth did Regulan bloodworms get aboard the _Copernicus_? There hasn’t been a case of infection reported since the quarantine established over the Regulan system for the past century and a half!”

“That is correct, Captain,” the Vulcan replied. “And yet we are definitely dealing with a bloodworm infestation.”

“If that’s the case,” Picard said, “then why doesn’t the victim simply die when the bloodworms have completed eating his or her blood? That used to be the best-know symptom of the bloodworm infection – people were dead within six hours, if I remember correctly. Entire planets were completely depopulated in mere days.”

“Indeed,” Selar said. “However, the bloodworms that we have detected in Mr Hodel’s bloodstream show a genetic alteration, compared with the original micro-organisms categorized in the medical database.”

“What kind of alteration?” Picard asked, having the glum feeling that he was not going to like the answer.

“We are still running tests,” Selar answered, “but the preliminary theory is that the modified organisms destroy the area of the brain that directs conscious thinking as well as conserve the body itself beyond brain-death, to serve as host and in order to spread the infection.”

“Leaving us with a bunch of hungry zombies,” Picard summarized sarcastically.

“With animated corpses directed by the thought impulses of the parasite; _if_ we can call their instinctual behaviour thought impulses,” the Vulcan corrected.

“Is that possible at all?” Picard frowned. “For low-level life forms to control an organism as complex as the human body? Even if that body is dead?”

“The results are a little awkward,” Selar allowed, “but, as we can see it, workable. Until the infection has run its course, that is; after which he body would decompensate, releasing a new generation of spores.”

“But why would anyone wish to alter the genetic make-up of Regulan bloodworms, of all species?” Picard was still too shocked to think as methodically as was his wont.

“Perhaps,” Beverly’s eyes acquired that manic gleam as always when she was coming up with one of her far-fetched conspiracy theories, “perhaps somebody wanted to create an ultimate doomsday weapon…”

“Using _bloodworms_?” Picard found that a little hard to believe. “What good would it do to anyone? Nobody can annect a planet that had been infested with bloodworms. There’s a reason why the entire Regulan system is still under quarantine. The little buggers don’t just die when they run out of people to eat. They _hibernate_ – only to wake up as soon as any warm-blooded creature with iron in their blood gets close to them.”

Beverly shrugged. “Well, it’s just a theory. It’s possible that we’re dealing with a spontaneous mutation, after all.”

“Which still does not explain how the bloodworms found their way aboard the _Copernicus_ ,” Selar said. “Unless the crew violated the quarantine order and entered the Regulan system, of course, but I see no logical reason for them to do so. The risks for themselves would be too high.”

“We can discuss the whys and wherefores later,” Picard said. “What I want to know is how we can cure our people.”

“There is no known cure for bloodworm infection,” Selar told him laconically. “Not for the original form of the parasite, and even less so for this new, mutated version. I am sorry, Captain.”

“Well, then it’s time to find one,” Picard returned. “I’m not giving up on my crew just yet. We can’t keep up the repulsor field forever; and once it fails, the spores _will_ find their way into the _Enterprise_ , seeing that they are spaceborne and all.”

“I must admit, Captain, that I am at a loss how we could solve this problem,” the Vulcan confessed.

“I do have an idea that might work,” Beverly said, shooting the Vulcan a disapproving look. “But I’m not sure that there’s enough time to carry it out.”

“With such a short incubation period, the Away Team will have about two hours before the bloodworms take effect,” Selar told her bluntly. “They have all breathed in the spores – or got them through an open wound. Currently, Commander Data is the only one who can be considered immune.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Needless to say that Ryker was deeply shocked by their commanding officer’s answer to his beam-out request.

“What do you mean you can’t?” he demanded. “These… zombies are doing their best to get through the door between them and the Away Team, and it’s just a matter of time till they’ll get lucky.”

“I’m truly sorry, Number One,” Picard replied, “but it seems that you’ve all been infected by Regulan bloodworms – well, except Mr. Data, of course. And as a Klingon, Mr. Worf may have _some_ natural immunity. But these bloodworms seem to have mutated somehow, which means that not even Worf is completely safe.”

“And what are we supposed to do now?” Ryker demanded. “Should we just roll over and let them kill us?”

“I’m afraid the problem is more serious than that, Commander,” Carli said unhappily. “If we are infected, the transformation has already begun. In less than two hours, we’ll start attacking each other – those with a faster development rate will fall over the less infected. We’ll all become zombies,” s/he added and began to cry, softly, quietly.

“But how did the worms get aboard the _Copernicus_ to begin with? Daro wondered, squatting down next to their medic and laying a comforting arm around hir thin shoulders.

Ryker shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine, Ensign.”

“Actually, there is no need to guess, Commander,” Data interrupted, tapping his forehead with a finger. “The medical logs seem to indicate that the _Copernicus broke_ a one hundred and fifty-seven-year-old quarantine by entering the Regulan system. As for why they would make such an unreasonable step…”

“Wait, Data,” LaForge interrupted, scratching his itching hand absent-mindedly. “Can you hear that?”

The android looked at him in blank confusion. “Hear what, Geordi? You need to be more precise; all I can hear are the normal, functional noises of the life support system. Admittedly, they are not working at peak efficiency, but…”

“Exactly,” LaForge interrupted him again. “Everything has become _very_ silent, all of a sudden.”

“You’re right,” Ryker realised. “Now, where have the damned zombies gone? What are they up to now?”

“Perhaps they’ve given up,” Worf growled doubtfully.

“That’s unlikely,” LaForge shook his head. “They were pretty determined to get to us and kill us. They’re planning something – and we’re not gonna like it.”

He began to scratch himself furiously again, until the back of his hand was criss-crossed with deep scratch marks, the one or other of which deep enough to bleed.

“Geordi,” Data warned, “you should not do that. Injuring yourself is contraproductive; plus, the smell of blood will only attract the infected people.”

“I know, I know, but I can’t help it,” LaForge complained. “I itch terribly, all over.”

“Now that you mention it…” Ryker began to scratch himself, too, and didn’t seem able to stop. Neither did Carli.

“This is not good,” s/he said worriedly. “If I remember correctly, the itching is the first symptom of the disease.”

“Then why don’t Worf and Ensign Daro have it?” Ryker asked, almost accusingly.

“Klingons have a natural immunity,” Data reminded him. “They can even drink fully developed bloodworms as a delicacy in their bloodwine.”

“But the captain said that these are mutated worms,” LaForge pointed out. “So Worf might _not_ be immune, after all.”

“Theoretically, he might not,” the android allowed, “but Klingon physiology is extremely redundant. The possibility that Lieutenant Worf may be affected is under ten per cent. He might act as a carrier, though, so Captain Picard cannot afford to beam him back to the _Enterprise_ , either.”

“And what about Daro?” Ryker asked, eyeing the completely unfazed Rigelian enviously.

“Well, as a Vulcanoid, Ensign Daro has a blood chemistry based on copper, rather than on iron,” Data replied. “The bloodworms only attack species with _red_ blood.”

“Which is why they simply killed Baldor, instead of trying to turn her into one of them,” Daro added. “They knew she would not be compatible; and neither would I.”

The perspective didn’t seem to comfort him, though, which was understandable. Baldor’s death had been anything but _simple_ , after all.

“Unfortunately, iron-based haemoglobin is one of the most frequent traits among humanoid species,” Data said. “Consequently, aside from Klingons, Vulcanoids and Andorians, practically _everyone_ in the known galaxy is endangered.”

As if wanting to prove his words, Carli suddenly released a high-pitched shriek and rolled into a ball on the floor, clutching hir flank as if in pain. The howls s/he produced didn’t even sound vaguely human.

Ryker frowned. “What’s his problem?” he asked Daro, not bothering with the right pronouns.

The Rigelian shrugged, petting the little alien’s hair soothingly.

“I don’t know, sir. S/he seems to be in a great deal of pain; perhaps s/he has injured hirself and had not realised it until now. Lieutenant,” he looked at Worf,” would you help me to remove hir tunic, so that I can check hir for injuries? It appears that the source of hir pain is under hir arms… both of them.”

While Carli kept howling in pain like a wounded animal, the Klingon and the Rigelian – both having a more relaxed attitude towards nudity than the average human – did their best to remove hir tunic without causing hir any more distress. It was not easy to peel hir hands away from hir sides, and as soon as the tunic was out of the way, s/he hugged hirself in despair again.

Ryker could not help but ogle a bit; this was the first time that he’d seen the little alien without a uniform. The torso thus revealed was long, thin and pale, the breasts too flat to be those of a woman yet too soft to be the pecks of a man; the chest was also completely hairless. He wondered if there were any physical changes when Carli got _in the heat_ , as s/he was known to put it… an occasion that happened quite regularly, if one could trust the rumour mill.

“We _must_ take a look at the affected area,” Daro growled in the meantime, blissfully unaware of their commanding officer’s improper thoughts. Which was fortunate for Ryker, as the Rigelian was quite fond of the little alien medic, and he knew at least twenty-seven different ways to kill a man without a weapon.

Carefully as not to break Carli’s thin bones, Daro once again peeled those surprisingly large hands off hir flanks – and then all but Data backed off a step in utter revulsion.

Under the soft, pale skin of the little alien worm-like creatures were moving, wriggling themselves upward – most likely heading for the brain. Their movement must have caused extreme pain, if Carli’s high-pitched shrieks were any indication.

“Can’t we give hir something to ease the pain?” Daro asked anxiously; his sensitive Vulcanoid hearing found the howls hard to endure. “We can’t just let hir suffer while being eaten alive!”

“Unfortunately, I have no idea what we can or cannot do at this point,” Data admitted. “Perhaps we should consult Doctor Crusher…”

“What we should do is to kill hir on the spot,” Wolf growled. “It would be the merciful thing to do. Can’t you see it, Commander? S/he’s becoming one of _them_!”

“So we should just put hir down like a rabid dog?” Daro demanded angrily.

Worf shrugged his heavy shoulders. “You’ll see, Ensign, that there’s no help for hir. Letting hir suffer and turn into a mummy is something a _friend_ ,” he emphasized the word, “should not subject hir to.”

At this point Carli mercifully passed out, and the room fell eerily silent after hir bone-shattering screams. Ryker was just about to contact the _Enterprise_ again when he realized that the sealed door was slowly, unstoppably bulging inward.

The zombies were about to break through!

He hit his comm badge with slightly more force than it would have been strictly necessary. “Ryker to _Enterprise_. Captain, the zombies are almost upon us. Could you have us beamed _inside_ that repulsor field, here on the _Copernicus_?”

“Just a second, Number One,” there was a short pause while Picard consulted the transporter chief. “Mr. O’Brien says yes. Prepare for extraction.”

“We are ready, sir, whenever you are.”

“Very well,” Picard’s voice became less focused as he turned away from the comm unit. “Chief O’Brien, energize!”

They could see the door finally give in and splinter into sharp pieces of metal, as the nightmarish creatures – not so long ago their fellow Starfleet officers – stormed the room. Then there was that familiar, tingling feeling, and the transporter beam pulled them away, just in time.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
“Doctor, tell me you’ve got good news,” Picard said when Beverly contacted him a moment alter.

“I think so,” Beverly replied smugly. “I think we’ve found a cure. If you’d come down and take a look?”

“On my way,” Picard stood, tugged down his uniform tunic and looked at the conn officer. “Mr. Haskell, you have the bridge,” he said before stepping into the turbolift and ordering it to take him to sickbay.

Down in sickbay, he found a proud and excited Beverly and Doctor Selar, wearing such a blank face as only a _very_ concerned Vulcan could.

“Congratulations on finding a cure so quickly, Doctors,” he said, but Selar shook her head.

“It is not a cure, Captain. It is an emergency measure only; one that is probably more dangerous than the plague itself.”

Beverly scowled at her. “You are exaggerating, Selar!”

“No, I am not,” the Vulcan stated calmly. “I am merely pointing out the possible risks this emergency measure could mean for the entire crew.”

“Let me take a look at this cure of yours first,” Picard said placatingly. “Does it really work? If yes, we can argue about whether or not we should risk using it.”

“Of course it works!” Beverly replied indignantly. “Look at it, Julien.”

She turned around the monitor screen, which showed the strongly magnified image of two worm-like creatures, one of which was devouring the other.

“I’ve created an anti-bloodworm,” she announced proudly, “which feeds on bloodworms exclusively. I got the idea from an old Earth game we used to play as children. It’s called Pac-Mac; perhaps you’ve heard of it.”

Picard shook his head; not that he’d been the slightest interested in what Beverly had wasted her childhood with.

“How are you planning to stop the anti-worms from getting out of control?” he asked.

“She cannot,” Selar injected icily. “The anti-worms are stronger, more resistant than the bloodworms themselves. Spontaneous mutations can be neither foretold now prevented. She could release a plague, compared with which the bloodworms would appear positively harmless.”

“No, I won’t!” Beverly waved off her warnings impatiently. “As soon as the bloodworms are neutralised, a poison will be administered to the victim; one that is harmless to the host but kills the anti-worms.”

“Or so you hope,” Selar commented dryly.

“I _know_ it will work,” Beverly insisted.

Picard, having his doubts about the outcome of the idea, looked at Selar, who seemed close to rolling her eyes – under normal circumstances not a typical Vulcan reaction.

“What do you suggest, Doctor?” he asked. “Should we try it? Is it doable?”

“We _can_ try it, of course,” Selar replied, weighing her own words carefully. “It will certainly deal with the bloodworms. I am not certain about the aftermath, though; that we could eliminate the anti-worms safely, without killing the host in the process.”

“I see,” Picard sighed. “Unfortunately, this is the only action we can choose at the moment. We simply don’t have the time to look for other methods before the Away Team, too, would turn into a horde of zombies. All right, Beverly; we’ll beam the cure over and have Data administer it; at least he won’t be endangered.”

“Oh, no!” Beverly protested. “Data isn’t qualified to handle a medical emergency of this magnitude. _I’ll_ go!”

“That would be highly illogical, Doctor,” Selar said. “It is I who should administer the cure. I am every bit as qualified as you are, _and_ I have a natural immunity as a Vulcan. There is no reason for you to put yourself at risk – and others, should this cure not work as it is supposed to.”

“It _will_ work,” Beverly declared stubbornly. “And _I’m_ the Chief Medical Officer of this ship; it’s _my_ responsibility.”

“There is also such thing as delegating responsibilities,” the Vulcan pointed out. “Logic dictates that the person best suited to perform a task should be assigned to that task. And in _this_ case, _I am_ the person best suited, as I would be the one taking the lesser risk. It is that simple.”

“Don’t come me with that twisted Vulcan logic of yours,” Beverly snarled. “This is _my_ sickbay, _my_ cure and _my_ responsibility. And that’s why _I’ll_ go,” she glared at Picard defiantly. “You can’t hinder me, Julien, and you know it. In cases of medical emergency I outrank you.”

“Oh, so we are having a little power struggle?” Picard asked sarcastically. “Strange; until now I had the – apparently mistaken – impression that we are trying to stop the deadliest plague know to Federation history.”

“ _Touché_ , Captain,” Selar commented sotto voce. 

Her face mirrored one of the many Vulcan non-expressions; currently one that clearly showed just a touch of _schadenfreude_. Which was unbecoming of a Vulcan perhaps, but even her endurance had its limits. Being a logical people, Vulcans did not suffer fools gladly.

Before the indignantly spluttering Beverly could have thought of an answer, the turbolift doors wooshed open, admitting the tall figure of Ensign Hodel.

Or rather the desiccated mummy that had been Hodel only a couple of hours earlier.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just for the record: personally, I don’t find Beverly a particularly strong character. Or Riker, for that matter; but that’s my personal opinion. Feel free to disagree.


	8. Conspiracies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The particulars of Saurian customs and physiology are taken from “The Words of the Federation”, an excellent background source by Shane Johnson. It’s not his fault that later series contradicted his ideas which, frankly, were a lot more plausible than what so-called canon later came up with.
> 
> According to him, Saurian names were always comprised of three parts. Of those, the third one contained information about the date of birth, gender, personal achievements, marital status, occupation, and even personal interests. As a result, Saurian last names were often more than fifty letters long and for common use abbreviated into three representative letters, divided by apostrophes. Based on this, I reverse-engineered Rohan’s name to R’H’N.
> 
> As for Regulan natives, the basic information about their system and origins comes from the same source. Their looks, however, are based on a picture that shows the supposedly sentient, bipedal descendant of a dinosaur I found in a rather stupid book about UFOs. *g*

**CHAPTER SIX – CONSPIRACIES**

“Beverly,” Picard said slowly, not taking his eyes from the mummified face of the creature that a day ago was the best diagnostic engineer LaForge had ever served with. “Can you tell me how Mr Hodel has apparently managed to escape from IsoLab One, where he should have been under constant surveillance?”

“Ummm…” Beverly was thinking quickly, trying to find an acceptable explanation – and failed. “Well, to be honest, we thought he was dead, and I had him removed to the morgue. It was too late to save him, and we’ve learned from him everything we possibly could.”

“The crew of the _Copernicus_ was dead, too,” Picard reminded her sharply. “It wasn’t until they became brain dead that the bloodworms finally took control, remember?”

“I... ummm… didn’t think of _that_ ,” Beverly confessed, a little subdued. “All I had on my mind was to find a cure.”

She threw Selar a quick glance that practically begged for help. Selar gave her the best Vulcan eyebrow in exchange that clearly said _told you so_. Which she doubtlessly had. Vulcans _always_ took any possible dangers into consideration, and they were nothing if not thorough.

While they were arguing, Hodel stepped out of the turbolift, heading towards them with a strange, hobbling gait. Picard touched his comm badge.

“Security to sickbay. Emergency site-to-site transport, authorization Picard Epsilon 7-9-3.”

He’d barely finished rattling down his authorization code when a group of three grim-looking security officers shimmered into existence less than a metre from his position, their phasers already set to kill. They aimed at the zombified Hodel without hesitation, their training taking over.

Shock would come later.

“Wait!” Selar stopped them before they could have fired. “You must _not_ kill him.”

The security officers looked at Picard in confusion. Picard, for his part, looked at Selar the same way.

“Care to explain, Doctor?”

“When an infected body disintegrates, it sets free an entire cloud of new spores; thousands of them,” Selar replied. “That is how Ensign Hodel got infected in the first place. Killing him would only spread the disease throughout the _Enterprise_.”

“But we can’t let him run free,” Picard said. “ _That_ would lead to the same result.”

“True,” the Vulcan allowed. “However, he would not do much additional harm aboard the _Copernicus_ ; and he still has his communicator.”

Picard understood the hint and touched his comm badge at once.

“Picard to Transporter Room Three. Chief, lock on to Ensign Hodel’s comm badge and beam him over to the _Copernicus_ immediately.”

O’Brien acknowledged his order, and before Hodel could have reached them, the transporter beam caught him and pulled him away.

“That is one problem dealt with,” Picard said. “Now, Beverly, Doctor Selar, let us discuss that cure of yours and see how we could use it safely.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
The Away Team materialized almost simultaneously in the cargo bay of the _Copernicus_ , in the midst of the repulsor field. The large room – large for an _Oberth_ -class ship, that is – was fairly dark and relatively empty, save for three vaguely humanoid forms that could not be identified in the darkness, and a short, double row of metallic tubes that seemed to be standard cryogenic chambers at first sight.

Outside the perimeter of the repulsor field they could hear the zombies throwing heavy objects against the doors, obviously trying to break them. Using his tricorder, Data quickly checked the environment.

“The repulsor field is working within acceptable parameters, Commander,” he then reported. “There are thirteen life signs in this room. Ten of them are very weak, presumably coming from people held in cryogenic suspension. The remaining three are: two humans and one… _Regulan_?”

The surprise in his voice almost reached human levels. Which was understandable, considering that due to the one-hundred-and-fifty-year-old quarantine there had been no contact with the native species of Regulus II for roughly the same length of time. Perplexed, Ryker switched on his palm torch and flashed the beam around in the cargo bay, to have a closer look at its occupants.

Two of them were human enough indeed: one a middle-aged man with tired blue eyes and deep lines on his leathery face. The other one was just slightly older, not very tall, thin and unassuming, but his sharp features spoke of a keen intelligence. Both were wearing the blue uniforms of the science department, with the rank pips of a lieutenant commander and a full commander on their collars, respectively.

The third one was a reptilian biped in civilian garb. At first sight it showed vague similarities with the Saurians, one of the most respected and intelligent Federation members. It had the same naked, bulbous skull, the same bulging yellow eyes with vertical black slits for pupils, the same long, graceful, almost bird-like limbs. The lover part of its face was similarly thin and pointy, too, with a lipless mouth full of small, razor-sharp teeth.

But with that, the similarities ended. Unlike the purple or ruddy Saurians, the Regulan had greenish-yellow skin, prominent eye sockets that dominated the entire middle part of its triangular face, and only three long fingers on its slender hands, two of which were opposable. It was also at least a head taller than the tallest Saurian Ryker had ever met – which, considering the average height of Saurians, still wasn’t much. It was wearing a nondescript overall in yellow.

In any case, Ryker thought, things had just become a great deal more complicated. There was definitely more going on than just a violation of the Regulan quarantine, for whatever insane reason _that_ might have happened. He had the uncomfortable feeling that this whole thing was way above his league – but that didn’t make him back off.

He wanted _answers_ , and he wanted them _now_.

“I’m Commander William B. Ryker, executive officer of the USS _Enterprise_ ,” he introduced himself. “We received your distress call and came to your aid – only to run into a deadly trap. Would you care to tell us what the hell has happened here?”

“I’m Dr. Robert Crusher, Chief Medical Officer of the _Copernicus_ , “the somewhat younger human answered; then he nodded towards his fellow officer. “Commander Yarell is – _was_ – our science officer. He was the one who identified the threat we were facing. However, by then it was already too late.”

“Where is the rest of the crew?” Ryker asked.

“Over there,” Dr. Crusher waved in the direction of the cryogenic chambers. “They’ve been infected but might be saved, eventually, should a cure be found.”

“Only ten out of eighty left?” LaForge was undeniably shocked.

Dr. Crusher nodded. “Except us, of course… _and_ the zombies,” he glanced at the unconscious body of Carli. “I can freeze him too, if you’d want. If nothing else, cryogenic suspension will slow down the spread of the worms until we can come up with a more permanent cure.”

“What I want are some answers,” Ryker told him bluntly. “Why did you violate the Regulan quarantine and how did the worms get aboard in the first place?”

“You want answers?” Yarell laughed hysterically. “I’ll give you answers. We violated the quarantine because _he_ ,” and he pointed a finger at the strangely blasé Regulan, “flew our ship there, falsifying the course records. That’s why.”

“This is our conn officer, Lieutenant R’H’N,” Dr Crusher explained, “or Rohan, as we used to call him while we still thought him a Saurian hybrid and a genuine Starfleet officer. As it turned out, he was neither.”

“And whose fault is _that_?” the Regulan asked sharply, his voice an angry hiss. “Less than two hundred years ago, we opened the lush plateaus on the southern continent of Regulus II to human habitation, and your people came by the thousands. At some point, the Federation colony counted sixteen thousand inhabitants, and we shared a steady, mutually beneficial trade with them.”

“What changed it?” Ryker asked, somewhat baffled, because this was the first time he’d heard about those things.

“Human greed was what changed it,” Rohan, if that was his name indeed, answered bitterly. “Your people developed a taste for the giant eel-birds on Regulus V; for their rainbow-coloured feathers, for their jewelled eggs, for their metallic-scaled skin. More and more flew to the fifth planet, for hunting trips, bringing those magnificent creatures to the brink of extinction. But that wasn’t enough for them. Further and further did they get into the unexplored areas of the planet, looking for fresh prey; and so they came over the bloodworms, got infected and brought the disease over to our planet.”

“And no-one had natural immunity to the worms,” LaForge summarized.

“ _We_ had,” the Regulan answered, “but the Federation colony became extinct within a standard month. By then, the plague spread over to the third and sixth planets as well. All colonists with red blood died. The Federation then put a quarantine on our system, stating that, while immune ourselves, we must be carriers – and that was the end of it. The end of our contact with other people, the end of our economy – we had already become dependant on the trade – the end of all our hopes. For a hundred and fifty years, we’ve been living in a ghetto, and when one of our ships tried to leave the system, the Federation patrols shot it down, without bothering to ask questions first.”

“And yet some of you must have managed to slip through, or you wouldn’t be here,” Ryker said. The Regulan snorted.

“The fact that you’re deadly afraid of us doesn’t make _us_ stupid; or certain third parties less greedy. We have waited for our opportunity and trained a number of agents with very special tasks, should they manage to get out. And when the opportunity finally offered itself, we just grabbed it.”

“I assume the opportunity came in the form of a Ferengi ship,” Ryker said grimly.

“You are free to guess as much as you want, Commander,” the Regulan shrugged. “I certainly won’t tell you anything that might lessen the chances of others to get out. I was the very first to succeed; others will follow. We won’t allow your precious Federation to commit genocide by closing us in and letting us die. You have no right to do so; especially as the outbreak of the plague was _your_ fault, not ours.”

“But what did you hope from releasing these altered bloodworms into Federation space?” Data asked.

“That was never my intention,” the Regulan answered. “My plan was to get in touch with either the Klingons or the Romulans; or both. They are immune to bloodworms; we hoped that if they learned the true story behind the quarantine, they would support our demands of it being lifted.”

“That still does not explain what has happened here,” Data said.

“It was an unfortunate incident,” Rohan sighed. “I flew the ship in the Regulan system to take it and the crew hostage. We hoped that way the Federation would at least negotiate with us and we might be able to send a message to the other prominent powers. But I was injured, and one of the medical technicians wouldn’t leave my wound alone. She accidentally got in contact with my blood, and that was how it all started. You see, I _am_ a carrier. We _all_ are by now, as a result of the quarantine and the lack of medical research sources.”

“And knowing _that_ , you consciously chose to enter an entire quadrant full of potential victims,” Hernandez growled in disgust.

“Yes, I did, and I would do it again,” the Regulan returned sharply. “My entire species is at the verge of extinction, and _not_ because of the bloodworms. A hundred and fifty years are not enough for a species that had lived on a certain technical level to learn how to survive in the equivalent of the Stone Age. Because that is what the quarantine has forced us to endure.”

“What makes you think the Federation would negotiate with terrorists?” Yarell scowled. “When Starfleet Command learns how you’ve altered the worms, you could call yourselves lucky if they don’t shoot your lousy planet to pieces, together with the rest of those bloodworm-infested dirtballs in your system.”

The Regulan rolled those large, luminous eyes of his in exasperation.

“You are truly insane, you know that? How could we have altered the worms when we no longer have the means to deal with the simplest diseases on our planet? Our population has already been decimated several times after we’d run out of inoculation stuff against common diseases! You really believe we’d have the infrastructure – or the medical knowledge – for risky genetic experiments?”

“But somebody _has_ altered those pesky things,” Hernandez insisted.

The Regulan shook his head. “No. It’s a spontaneous mutation that occurred on Regulus II only. Since we’re immune, the spores in our bloodstream are dormant. In order to survive, though, they had to adapt to our specific blood chemistry rather drastically.”

“For someone without medical knowledge, you seem to be quite the expert where bloodworms are considered,” Ryker commented suspiciously.

“No, I’m not,” the Regulan laughed; it sounded like a hiss. “But after I’d escaped from my home planet, I hid for a while in the lab of some Rigelian scientist, on a remote moon, near the Federation border. She examined me very thoroughly. Including my blood, because she hoped to find a cure with the help of my natural antibodies. As far as I know she’s been working on this cure all her adult life.”

“You mean Professor R’Nata?” Dr. Crusher asked. “Yeah, she _is_ the expert on bloodworms, and the most vocal member of a small group of independent scientists who’ve been fighting to have the quarantine lifted for quite some time. No wonder she took you in; you must have been the answer to all her prayers.”

“Well, did she find a cure or not?” Hernandez asked impatiently.

The Regulan shrugged his bony shoulders. “I don’t know. She seemed to think that she was close to a major breakthrough, but according to her assistants, she’d thought so before, repeatedly – and was wrong.”

“She’s known for her unorthodox methods and bold theories,” Dr. Crusher nodded. “They cost her the one or other academic position several times, so that most medical scientists no longer take her seriously at all.”

“That’s bad luck for us,” LaForge commented. “Time is rapidly becoming the most important factor here.”

“What do you mean, Geordi?” Ryker asked with a frown.

“The repulsor field is weakening,” LaForge told him. “Another hour, and we’ll all become zombie food, unless the _Enterprise_ finds a solution, and that soon.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
“How is _that_ possible?” Picard stared at Ensign Clancy, LaForge’s right hand-woman in shocked disbelief.

“Well, sir,” the pretty, no-nonsense blonde explained, “the repulsor field has been drawing a great amount of energy from the antimatter containment tank. If they keep it up longer than another hour, the antimatter could – and probably will – come into contact with matter, resulting in a cataclysmic explosion.”

“Are you telling me that the _Copernicus_ may actually explode, unless our people terminate the only thing that protects them from the zombies?” Picard clarified with growing horror.

Clancy nodded. “Aye, Captain. And,” she added grimly, “if the _Copernicus_ is destroyed, so will be the _Enterprise_ , unless we hightail out of here at maximum Warp within the next five minutes, leaving the Away Team behind.”

“That is out of question,” Picard declared flatly.

Clancy nodded again. “I thought you’d say that, sir, but we must be realistic. There’s no way to prevent the exploding of the _Copernicus_ , and in such close proximity, she’ll take us with her. Is there any real chance that a cure would be found in time?”

“Not a real cure, Ensign,” Picard replied grimly, remembering what Selar had told him. “Just an emergency measure; and a rather desperate one, I’m afraid.”

Their discussion was interrupted by a call from sickbay.

“Crusher to Picard.”

“Go on, Doctor.”

“Captain, I’m ready to beam over to the _Copernicus_.”

“You better hurry up, Beverly,” the captain said. “We’ve got less than an hour before the _Copernicus_ goes off like a supernova. Which means all I can give you are exactly fifty minutes, not a nanosecond longer. Anyone _not_ cured within the time frame, must remain behind. Is that understood?”

“But Julien, we cannot…” Beverly started to protest, but Picard interrupted her harshly.

“Is. That. Understood, Doctor?”

“Aye, sir,” Beverly said reluctantly.

“Good,” Picard replied. “We can’t – and won’t – take any infected person back to Federation space. It’s simply too dangerous.”

“I’ll cure them all, Captain,” Beverly promised. “Beaming over now.”

“Make it so,” Picard answered absent-mindedly before hitting the ship-wide comm button. “All hands, this is the captain. Prepare for emergency Warp. This is _not_ a drill. Assume your emergency station. All civilians, go to the appointed emergency shelters and stay there under further notice. I repeat, this is _not_ a drill.”

He switched off the intercom and leaned back in his seat.

“Well, Beverly,” he murmured, “it’s up to you now.”

He only wished she’d have the common sense to take Selar with her but knew better than ask.


	9. Last-Minute Rescue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rigelian scientist Professor R'Nata is an OC, based on a colleague of me.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
 **CHAPTER SEVEN – LAST-MINUTE RESCUE**

Anxiety spread quickly among the survivors of the Copernicus, following LaForge’s announcement. Commander Yarell, clearly having reached the end of his rope, was waving a phaser at the Regulan.

“This is all your fault!” he screamed. “My entire crew died or turned into man-eating monsters because of you. You should be executed on the spot.”

“Go on, kill me,” Rohan answered coldly. “That will only release the dormant spores in my blood, and you’ll all become the living dead before your ship explodes.”

Frightened to the edge of madness, Yarell reluctantly lowered his phaser.

“There is one more problem to be considered, Commander,” Data said to Ryker. “The spores – though not the worms themselves – are obviously spaceborn. Which means that if the _Copernicus_ explodes, they may spread over this entire sector.”

“How high is the possibility that they’d survive the explosion?” Ryker asked.

“Relatively low, sir; about four point seven three per cent,” the android replied. “Still, is that a risk we can ignore?”

“No, it isn’t,” Ryker agreed. “But what could we do against it? Where would the worms be destroyed without doubt?”

“In the heart of a sun, Commander,” Data answered without hesitation. “And there happens to be a brown dwarf star with an extremely strong gravitation field one point six nine parsecs from here. If we can access navigation and helm controls from this room, we could jury-rig the engines to go on emergency Warp as soon as we’ve beamed out and send the ship right into the star. Should the nuclear fusion not be enough to exterminate the worms, the gravity would trap them forever.”

“That can actually be done?” Ryker looked at LaForge for confirmation.

Their chief engineer nodded. “It would require _extremely_ correct calculations, but we’ve got Data. With his help, yeah, we _can_ do this.”

“All right, make it so,” Ryker didn’t realize he was using the favourite phrase of their captain; nor did he see the hurriedly suppressed grins of his shipmates.

Data and LaForge started working on the calculations at once, while Doctor Crusher monitored Carli’s vitals, who was whimpering, even in hir unconscious state. The doctor looked up to Ryker in concern.

“I really think we should freeze him… her, Commander.”

“That won’t help him,” Ryker dismissed the idea. Again.

“No,” Doctor Crusher agreed. “But it would hold back the onset of the transformation. For a while anyway.”

“I’d rather take my chances with Beverly’s cure,” Ryker answered stubbornly.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Right on clue, a transporter beam began to shimmer in their midst, coalescing into the sleek form of Beverly Crusher, standing in the graceful pose of a resting ballerina and holding a large medkit as if it had been some bizarrely oversized designer handbag.

Spotting her brother-in-law, she all but dropped it, though.

“Robert!” she squealed happily. “You’re alive! That’s wonderful!”

Robert hugged her briefly. “I am, but my patients won’t be much longer, Bev, so we should hurry up.”

“He’s right,” Ryker said. “I’d hate to leave behind anyone, just because we ran out of time. Start with Carli; he’s in the worst shape of us all.”

“Oh, of course, Bill, you’re absolutely right!” Beverly opened her medkit, took out a hypospray and pressed it to Carli’s neck. With a low hiss, the hypo emptied its contents into hir bloodstream.

“Let’s hope it works,” Robert Crusher said, while Beverly went on to inoculate him. “Their physiology is in a very delicate balance. If the disease itself doesn’t kill him… her, the cure still might.”

“Well, that can’t be helped,” Beverly stepped over to LaForge to administer the cure. “We couldn’t come up with something different for hir in such a short time.”

She inoculated Hernandez and Yarell, and then went over to the cryogenic chambers.

“How long until they’d thaw out?” she asked.

“About twenty minutes,” Robert Crusher was already starting the reviving sequence. “These are the newest models, fortunately. If they don’t malfunction, we may heal our people within the time frame.”

“Let’s hope so,” Beverly scanned Carli. “The cure seems to work. The bloodworms in hir blood are dying. There’ll be a great deal of rehab later, after we’d flushed the anti-worms out of hir blood, but at least s/he’s no longer contagious. S/he can be beamed back to the _Enterprise_ ; and so can you,” she added scanning Yarell, who, in turn, pointed at the Regulan accusingly.

“What about him?” he demanded. “You’re not planning to take him with us, do you?”

“That’s exactly what I’m planning, Commander,” Ryker answered coldly, not used to others questioning his judgement. Especially not when said others had just managed to lose their entire crew to some homicidal parasites.

“Why?” Yarell demanded. “He tried to spread the bloodworms throughout Federation space. He should be left behind, sent into the sun, together with the _Copernicus_ and the damned zombies!”

“May I remind you that those damned zombies are actually your former crewmates?” Daro growled. He could understand that the man was frightened, but being so callous towards former colleagues whose only crime was to have been less lucky than he’d had was way too selfish.

“No, we won’t get rid of him so easily,” Ryker said. “Federation authorities will deal with this problem; and with him. This is not our league. Mr. Worf, take him into custody and beam over with him to the _Enterprise_.”

“But-but he’s a carrier!” Yarell protested. “He’ll infest your ship with the bloodworms, just as you did with ours!”

Hernandez gave him an unfriendly look.

“No, he won’t,” she said. “We have specific cells in our brig, with quarantine fields. Or do you think we’re stupid, _hombre_? C’mon, Worf!”

The Klingon wrestled the Regulan’s arms behind his back and handcuffed him with the special, molecular-bound manacles no-one had ever been able to break. The Regulan offered no resistance when they were caught in the transporter beam and carried away.

Less than a minute later Worf reappeared. “Everything is settled,” he told Ryker.

The executive officer nodded. “Good work, Mr. Worf. Your turn now,” he turned to Yarell and Robert Crusher.

But the chief medical officer of the _Copernicus_ shook his head.

“No, I’ll stay. These are _my_ patients,” he gestured towards the cryogenic chambers, “and Beverly may need my help when they come to. They don’t know her; however, they do know _me_.”

Ryker nodded, because that was a logical assumption.

“All right,” he said. “Macha, Ensign Daro, return to the _Enterprise_ and take Carli with you.”

“S/he must be kept in quarantine,” Robert Crusher warned, “just like the rest of us, even those with immunity. We still don’t know how efficient the cure is; or how to neutralize the dormant spores in the blood stream of potential carriers. I’m afraid we’re all going to have a fairly long forced sick leave to expect.”

“That would be actually convenient,” Ryker said. “It would give us the chance to discuss the demands of the Regulans with the Federation authorities.”

Yarell stared at him in shocked disbelief.

“Ryker, you can’t be serious!” he exclaimed. “Are you really considering forwarding their… their _ultimatum_ to the Federation Council? They’re mass murderers!”

“No, they’re not,” Ryker answered coldly. “They’re merely desperate. Granted, the methods of Mr Rohan… could that truly be his name? He _isn’t_ a Saurian, after all.”

“I assume his real name would be close enough,” Data injected. “Regulan names are, as a rule, too difficult for humanoids to pronounce. The vocal cords of mammals are not made to produce the right sounds. We should simply call him Rohan, as this is apparently the name he chose.”

“Whatever his real name may be, while it’s true that his methods were a bit unorthodox, to put it mildly, I understand – and I’m sure Captain Picard will agree with me – that his people were mistreated by the Federation a hundred and fifty years ago,” Ryker said.

“We had to protect ourselves!” Yarell shouted.

“Perhaps,” Ryker allowed. “But not by forcing an entire civilization back to the pre-industrial age. I understand that our people were frightened; the bloodworms are a very serious threat and _could_ become the ultimate doomsday weapon in the wrong hands. But sacrificing an otherwise blameless species just to set our fears to rest is not the right way to go.”

Yarell looked as if he wanted to keep arguing, but by then, Worf had had enough. He grabbed the _Copernicus_ officer by the throat and lifted him bodily in the air.

“Worf to _Enterprise_ ,” he barked. “Two to beam over, directly to the brig.”

Before Yarell could have suffocated, sparkles filled the air, and Worf and his victim were beamed away.

“Well then,” Ryker said dryly, “now that the excitement is over, I believe the rest of us have a job to do.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
It was a true – and sometimes frightening – race against time, but in the end the two Doctor Crushers managed to thaw out and inoculate all surviving crewmembers of the _Copernicus_ … about seven minutes before Data and LaForge would have finished jury-rigging the engines to send the ship into the nearest convenient sun. Which, as Data had explained previously, was a brown dwarf, just hot enough to reduce both ship and zombified crew into a bunch of glowing atoms. Hopefully, together with the mutated bloodworms.

They all beamed over to the _Enterprise_ in a great hurry, directly into the quarantine area. Even Data had to be quarantined until the doctors could be absolutely sure that none of the airborne spores were hiding in his hair or clothes.

They all gathered in the living room of the quarantine area – well, with the exception of Carli, whose delicate physiology was still coping with the aftermath of both the infection _and_ the cure and the Regulan who had been put in one of the high-security arrest cells – to watch the last voyage of the _Copernicus_.

“They may be man-eating, undead monsters, now,” Robert Crusher summarized everybody’s feelings, “but less than two days ago, they were our crewmates: simple human beings like us. In fact, it could have been us, heading towards a fiery grave, had we been just a little less fortunate.”

“Quite true,” Ryker agreed, rising his glass as the _Copernicus_ ’ warp engines suddenly came alive and the ship became grotesquely elongated for a nanosecond, like a rubber band, before leaping into subspace. “To absent friends we won’t see anymore. This is to Mikal Hodel, the best diagnostic engineer and most outrageous flirt we’ve ever served with.”

“And this is to Ensign Baldor who would have deserved better from her crewmates,” Daro added quietly, raising his own glass, the electric blue beverage in which looked suspiciously like Romulan ale. The others followed his lead, somewhat guiltily, as more than one of them had had their doubts against the Romulan expatriate – and had been proved wrong, but for what price?

Worf, holding a smoking tankard of _check’tluth_ , a traditional Klingon beverage other races would hesitate to use for de-rusting photon torpedo tubes in fear that it would eat its way through the super hard metal, muttered something under his breath in Klingoneese. It was either a word of apology, or a word of farewell… or a parting insult. Nobody was stupid (or suicidal) enough to ask which one.

One by one, the _Copernicus_ officers named their shipmates one last time and drank to their honour. It was a long list and a great many drinks – sixty-eight out of eighty crew had either been killed and eaten or transformed.

“Commander,” Data, who did not participate in the impromptu farewell ceremony, opting instead to monitor the progress of the _Copernicus_ , “long-range sensors show a massive matter-antimatter explosion at the exact coordinates of the brown dwarf. It seems the _Copernicus_ has reached her final destination. In fact, the explosion in the core of the star seems to have briefly rekindled the dead sun.”

“I hope that’s good news for us, Data,” Ryker said.

The android nodded. “Yes, sir. The nuclear reactions within an active star will safely eliminate any possible dangers coming from the bloodworms. And any potential wreckage surviving the explosion, unlikely though that is, would be safely trapped in the star’s gravity field. I would suggest placing warning bakes around the area, though, just in case.”

Ryker nodded. “Good idea, Data. I’ll forward it to Captain Picard. That’s one crisis solved; now if we just could deal with the two major problems so easily.”

“What do you mean, Bill?” Beverly asked. “We’ve found a cure, so everything’s all right.”

“We still don’t know what these anti-worms you’ve flooded our system with are actually doing to us,” Ryker pointed out. “And there’s still the main problem of Regulus II. I don’t think the enforced quarantine could be justified any longer. It was barbaric and unfair a hundred and fifty years ago to begin with; by today’s standards it can’t be continued anymore. Which means, we’ll need a different solution – and _that_ won’t be easily found.”

He could not know, of course – not _yet_ – that somebody was already working on that solution.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Doctor Selar looked at the picture of Professor R’Nata, as it appeared on the viewscreen in her quarters, with scientific curiosity. The famous – or rather infamous – Rigelian woman was roughly twice her age, which still did not count as old for a Vulcanoid, with the usual sharp features and elegantly pointed ears, but with an unruly mass of greying, ash blonde hair twisted into a loose knot on the nape of her long, thin neck. Her eyes were watery blue, very observant and quite shrewd. She wore the usual blue smock of medical personnel, and watched the Vulcan doctor with equal interest.

“Yes, your Regulan fugitive was here, in my lab, for five standard months,” she admitted readily. “He allowed me to do a complete physical on him, though which I’ve collected a great amount of useful data about Regulan physiology in general and its deterioration due to the results of the enforced quarantine in particular. _Including_ their symbiosis with the mutated bloodworms.”

“ _Symbiosis_?” Selar repeated with an arched eyebrow. “I thought he was merely a carrier.”

“That was what I thought in the beginning, too,” Professor R’Nata was visibly warming up to the topic. “However, after a thorough and repeated analysis of the data, I’ve postulated the hypothesis that these mutated worms, while adapting to the lack of any other available hosts, have developed a symbiotic connection to the native Regulans. They can survive in the blood stream of Regulan hosts, in a dormant state, and in exchange, they keep the host body alive.”

“I assume you mean by giving them a certain level of immunity against many diseases the Regulans no longer have the scientific means to protect themselves from,” Selar clarified, and the professor nodded.

“That is correct.”

“But that would also mean that – should we choose to inoculate them with Doctor Crusher’s cure – we could annihilate the native population of Regulus II in its entirety, by taking away the only immunity against diseases they currently possess,” Selar mentally made the next logical step.

The Rigelian doctor nodded again.

“That is also correct. But more than that, Doctor Crusher’s anti-worms seem to have a very aggressive nature. We must flush them out of the system of everyone who’s been infected, because if they’re allowed to breed uncontrolled, the consequences would be by magnitudes worse than the actual plasmasite infection.”

“They are not supposed to breed at all,” Selar reminded her colleague. “They are supposed to die and be absorbed by the host body.”

R’Nata gave her an ironic eyebrow that would have put any Vulcan to shame.

“I know what they’re _supposed_ to do, doctor. But we both know there are no guarantees that they’d actually _do_ it; and the long-term effects haven’t been considered, either, not even in theory, as far as I’m informed.”

“We did not have the time for that,” Selar knew she sounded vaguely defensive, and that annoyed her; it wasn’t _her_ fault, after all, that her concerns had been overridden. “Our immediate goal was to save the infected people.”

“I understand that, and I’m not making any accusations,” R’Nata answered. “But we do have the time now, and I’m offering my help. You know that, despite my sometimes questionable reputation, I’m _the_ expert when it comes to bloodworms. Granted, my attempts to find a cure – one that isn’t worse than the disease itself, that is – have failed so far. But with the new data I’ve gathered, _and_ with Doctor Crusher’s crude temporary cure, we could deal with this treat, once and forever.”

“And that would not endanger the native population of Regulus II?” Selar asked.

“Not if we work together and get help from the lead geneticists of Starfleet Medical,” R’Nata promised. “My plan is to cause changes in the genetic make-up of the bloodworms; changes that would enable them to absorb iron directly from other sources than just haemoglobin.”

“You mean like rust-eating bacteria?” Selar asked doubtfully.

The Rigelian nodded. “Something like that, yes.”

Selar thought about the suggestion unhurriedly for several minutes.

“Your idea does have its merits, Professor,” she finally said. “But an undertaking like this would require time, equipment, well-trained research and medical personnel… and volunteers. Do you have all these things at your disposal?”

“I have all the time in the universe,” R’Nata said. “I have extensive labs and dedicated researchers here; all Vulcans and Rigelians with natural immunity. I _will_ need more and better equipment, though; and I need _you_ to have all your quarantined crewmates _and_ the Regulan fugitive transferred to me. I’ll need them to observe the aftershocks of Doctor Crusher’s so-called cure. Besides, they won’t endanger anyone else _here_.”

“You assume that I can arrange their transfer,” Selar wasn’t so certain about _that_. In fact, she seriously doubted it. She said so, and Professor R’Nata shrugged.

“You’re a Vulcan and the daughter of a high-ranking diplomat; _and_ you’re Starfleet. You’ve got the connections. I suggest that you use them.”

Selar thought for a while again, and then she nodded. “Very well, Professor, I will see what I can do. I will contact you about the results of my actions shortly.”

“I’ll be awaiting your message,” and with that, the Rigelian broke the connection.

Selar took a deep breath and roughly eight point three one seconds to collect her thoughts before touching her comm badge.

“Selar to Picard.”

“Go ahead, doctor,” came the immediate answer.

“Captain, if you could spare some time for me, I believe I have a suggestion how to solve our current problem,” Selar told him. “Although you may not like it.”

There was a short, meaningful pause, and then Picard answered calmly. “Come to my ready room, Lieutenant, and we’ll discuss it.”


	10. Politics

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rear Admiral Bennett is a canon character. His only appearance was in the DS9 episode “Doctor Bashir, I presume”.
> 
> Picard’s declaration about the first duty is quoted – with small modifications – from the 5th Season TNG-episode “The First Duty”. Obviously.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
 **CHAPTER EIGHT – POLITICS**

Two hours later Picard was still in his ready room, drinking tea and facing a highly agitated Rear Admiral Bennett, the Judge Advocate General of Starfleet, who didn’t seem particularly pleased with his mission report – and rather vocal about his displeasure.

The fact that they’d known each other since the Academy didn’t help much. Especially as they never truly liked each other. Picard had always thought Bennett a brick-headed bureaucrat with a particularly narrow tunnel vision, while Bennett, for reasons nobody really understood, considered Picard something of a loose cannon.

“You can’t be serious, Picard!” Bennett insisted. “Are you telling me that you want the Regulan quarantine lifted? I’ve just had a most… embarrassing conversation with Kyle Ryker, our best tactical advisor, and he told me that his son supports this… this outlandish idea of yours. Have you both gone insane?”

“It’s not I who want it lifted, Admiral; it’s the Regulan natives,” Picard replied, calmer than he actually felt. Certain admirals always brought out the worst of him, and Bennett belonged to that category. “And they have considerable support already. Professor R’Nata has finally persuaded some friends in the Rigelian Senate to hand in an official request to the Federation Council; and as far as I’ve been informed, certain diplomatic circles on Vulcan are in agreement, too.”

“Easy to do for them; they’re not in any danger,” Bennett snorted. “That R’Nata woman is a menace. Do you have an idea what lifting the quarantine after a hundred and fifty years would mean? It would mean chaos! We wouldn’t be able to contain the bloodworms much longer – an outbreak on other planets would be inevitable. Billions would die!”

To his credit, he actually seemed to believe what he was saying. Which didn’t necessary mean that he was _right_ , of course.

“I think you’re mistaken about that, Admiral,” Picard answered with forced patience. “Federation medicine has made considerable headway in the last two centuries. Besides, we’re not talking about a complete lift of the quarantine; not yet. The idea is to allow limited access to people with natural immunity, like Vulcans or Rigelians…”

“… or Klingons,” Bennett injected unhappily. He was one of those old school officers who would never trust a Klingon. Not even a dead one.

Picard nodded. “Or Klingons, yes. I’m as aware of the risk we’d be taking with that as you are. Klingons are uncertain allies at best, and there are factions on Qo’noS that wouldn’t hesitate to use the bloodworms as a weapon against humans or any other species with iron-based haemoglobin.”

“Exactly!” Bennett exclaimed. “It would be suicide…”

“Which is why the lifting of the quarantine must happen gradually, over a long time, and it mustn’t be lifted completely until the planned genetic alteration of the bloodworms has been finished,” Picard continued, ignoring the admiral’s remark.

“You really think it could work?” Bennett seemed to doubt that very much. “R’Nata has been researching those damned worms for longer than you and me have been alive; without any useful results, I must add.”

“Perhaps, but it was not her fault,” Picard reminded him. “She was simply not given the right kind of support, because nobody believed that any research concerning a quarantined species would be necessary… or profitable.”

“It wouldn’t be, if we’d seal off the Regulan system more tightly,” Bennett muttered.

Picard shook his head. “No, Admiral. Regardless of how closely we watch the Regulan borders, we can’t seal them airtight. Rohan slipped through; others would slip through eventually, too. No; we need to deal with the root of the problem: the bloodworms themselves.”

“By letting a mad Rigelian scientist free reign?” Bennett asked sarcastically.

“She won’t have free reign,” Picard corrected. “Doctor Crusher – _both_ Doctor Crushers – will be there, as they need to be quarantined anyway for the time being. And Doctor Selar volunteered to join them, until the Vulcan Academy of Sciences can send in the true experts. I’m quite sure that a small army of Vulcans will be able to keep one eccentric Rigelian within her reins.”

“I still don’t like it,” Bennett declared sourly. “It’s too risky.”

“Neither do I,” Picard admitted. “But space exploration is risky business in itself, and Commander Ryker was right: we can’t keep an entire species imprisoned out of fear; or to cover for past mistakes. The first outbreak of the Regulan plague was the fault of humans, but we punished the Regulans for it anyway. That has to stop.”

“Just wait until they start demanding reparations,” Bennett said glumly.

“That would be well within their rights,” Picard answered. “We – the Federation – have taken their chance to grow and expand, and that for a century and a half. The least we can do is to help them rebuild their infrastructure to a standard all other people within Federation territory have to their disposition.”

“They’d hardly stop by _that_ ,” Bennett prophesied. Picard shrugged.

“I don’t know. If Mr. Rohan is any indication, they’re a hardy people: intelligent, territorial and fiercely independent, like most reptilians. I don’t think they’d want to become dependant on us. They just want the same chances as everyone else.”

“This will cause the biggest scandal in the history of the Federation,” Bennett said darkly.

Picard nodded. “Doubtlessly. Nonetheless, we must do the right thing. The first duty of every Starfleet officer is to the truth... be it scientific truth, historical truth, or personal truth. It is the guiding principle upon which Starfleet is based. If we cannot find it within ourselves to stand up and tell the truth about what happened... we do not deserve to wear this uniform.”

Bennett snorted. “You’ve always been a hopeless idealist, Picard.”

“I consider that a compliment, Admiral,” Picard replied. “The sad fact is, we’ve neglected this fundamental first duty for the last one hundred and fifty years; it’s time that we correct our old, grave error, no matter what it costs us.”

“By the book, to the bitter end, that’s your way, isn’t it?” Bennett commented with a sneer.

But he had lost the argument, and they both knew it. The Vulcans and Rigelians had already made their move, and there was no way the centuries-long injustice could be covered up again.

“I see nothing bitter in it,” Picard said with a faint smile. “Good day, Admiral.”

~The End~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The last chapter - sort of an epilogue - is the one that justifies the "Explicit" rating for the story. You can ignore it, if you are not into alien mating rituals. It has very little to do with the actual plot.


	11. Afterthought - Carli's Recovery

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Carli’s species is not closely described. I imagine them biologically similar to the race in “The Left Hand of Darkness” by Ursula K. Le Guin, but with a very different attitude towards life and with a technological level similar to that of 24th century Federation technology. They’re also short-range telepaths.
> 
> Rigelians living in clan marriages is book canon, established in the novel "Mind Meld". That they’d be bisexual as the norm is my invention.
> 
> This vignette takes place shortly after Chapter 08 of “Blood and Ice” and can be considered part of the bigger story.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Carli had been blinking in and out of consciousness for days, even after Professor R’Nata had managed to flush the anti-worms from hir bloodstream. Hir delicate physiology had had a bad reaction to the experimental medication; so bad that for a day or two they had been afraid s/he wouldn’t make it.

When _that_ crisis was finally over, and s/he began to regain hir strength, s/he had to realize that s/he was about to face a different problem.

S/he was getting into the heat again.

It wasn’t the right time for that yet, but the strong drugs had apparently unbalanced hir body – hir hormones before all else – and now s/he’d have to deal with it. Somehow.

The first, telling signs were already there. Hir nipples felt on fire, as if someone had run white-hot needles through them. The barest touch upon them would cause sheer unbearable pain. Hir clitopenis was a bit swollen and sensitive, too, but not overly so; in fact, it had even shrunk in size, which was a sure sign that s/he would go into heat as a woman… which s/he actually preferred outside hir homeworld. It was easier to find a male partner among strangers as a female one.

S/he mourned the loss of Hodel for more personal reasons than the others. Mikal had always been more than willing to take care of hir needs when s/he was in the heat – as an act of friendship, he’d always said jokingly. Daliwakans had a remarkably laid-back attitude when it came to sex. _And_ Mikal had had the gentlest hands that had ever roamed hir body – s/he loved them ghosting over hir sensitized skin.

Unfortunately, Mikal was dead, and now s/he’d have to find somebody else, quickly. But whom could s/he ask? All other races currently populating the _Enterprise_ would lack the true understanding of hir need; they’d think it a joke, or they’d try to take advantage of it.

In hir final moment of despair, s/he shared hir concerns with Doctor Selar, knowing that – if anyone – a Vulcan would understand the merciless demands of one’s own biology. On a cold, detached, scientific level, at the very least. After all, did not Vulcans go through something very similar every seven years?

“I wonder what they’d do if they had to endure _pon farr_ once in each season,” s/he muttered unhappily.

Selar listened to hir calmly, as was her wont, then promised to think about hir problem – and then left.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
On the next day, Ensign Daro came to visit hir in hir temporary quarters.

“Doctor Selar said you had a problem,” the Rigelian said simply. “Perhaps I can help.”

“ _You_?” Carli’s eyes widened in surprise; s/he’d never have considered Daro as a possible partner. Sure, Rigelians did live in clan marriages and regularly slept with _all_ their spouses, regardless of gender, but still…

Daro shrugged. “I’ve lost somebody, too, and it hurts,” he explained, his eyes haunted. “Baldor was my bondmate. It isn’t with us as it’s with Vulcans when they lose their spouse, but it’s bad enough. Perhaps helping you will help me, too.”

“Perhaps,” Carli allowed. “But you must understand that I’ll not be like the women you are used to, even if I go into heat _as_ a woman.”

Daro nodded. “Yeah, I know. Doctor Selar explained me the specifics. It doesn’t matter. You’re still cute as a button. We’ll work something out. If you can ignore the fact that I only have one set of genitals, I can live with the fact that you’ve got two. Besides, as you know, we are generally bisexual and have sex with both our male and female spouses.”

Carli nodded. As a trained medic, s/he was well aware of that. But theory was one thing – praxis a wholly different one. Still, it wasn’t so that she’d have any other choices. The Rigelian offered, and s/he couldn’t afford to refuse.

“How do you want to do this?” s/he asked.

Daro grinned. “I thought _you’d_ be telling me what to do.”

Carli laughed. “I can’t! Each partner is different, and we have to learn their preferences as we go, every time. So, how would you like to begin?”

“I’d like to see you naked,” Daro confessed. “I was always asking myself what you might look like… you know, down there,” he added, the points of his ears turning green with embarrassment.

“That can be arranged,” Carli was already unzipping the front of hir one-piece quarantine suit – the same one they all had been instructed to wear – but Daro caught hir hand.

“Let me,” he murmured, pressing a kiss into hir palm. An open-mouthed one, if the tickling of his tongue was any indication.

Carli blushed a little but didn’t protest. The brief, intimate touch had been really nice and s/he began to hope that they could make this arrangement work to mutual satisfaction, after all.

Daro pulled down the zipper to hir waist and carefully peeled the overall away from hir bony shoulders and down hir gangly arms, letting it hung loosely from hir slim hips. The angular hipbone held the fabric in place for the moment, so that he could see his fill. His smile turned just a little bit sultry as he was eyeing hir swollen nipples with interest.

“Are they very sensitive,” he asked, brushing over them with his thumbs, feather-light.

Even so, Carli arched hir back like a bow in mixed pain/pleasure.

“Yesss,” s/he hissed breathlessly. “They’re on fire.”

“Then we should cool them a bit,” Daro commented with almost technical detachment; then he bowed his head and licked hir nipples like some big, sleek cat. 

His wet, rough tongue felt incredibly good; Carli whimpered and clutched his dark head with both hands, pressing it to hir chest. Like always when s/he went into heat as a woman, hir breasts had become more defined in the recent days, swelling to small, softly rounded mounds, and hot spikes of pleasure shot through hir entire body as Daro swirled his tongue around them. Then the tongue withdrew, giving room for firm yet gentle hands that kneaded hir flesh expertly.

“Show me more,” Daro demanded, pushing the overall further down hir hips. “Oh!” he murmured with widening eyes as hir clitopenis was finally revealed. “You’re rather… small here.”

Carli grinned; somehow his surprise helped to regain hir self-confidence.

“That’s because I’ve gone into heat as a woman,” s/he explained. “Here,” she took his hand and directed it further down to her swollen labia. “Can you feel it? I’m more than ready for you.”

But Daro was in no hurry. He explored hir secrets with leisure fascination, slipping a couple of strong fingers inside hir, massaging hir hidden depths until s/he was mewling in pleasure.

“Oh, you’re so hot like this!” he murmured, pulling out his fingers and laying hir onto hir back. Carli scooted higher up on the bed, opening hir thighs widely, invitingly, while Daro stripped with military efficiency.

“Do we need any contraceptives?” he asked while getting rid of his clothes, practical-minded as always.

Carli shook hir head frantically. “No; our genes aren’t compatible enough for… for a spontaneous conception. Please… I need you, _now_!”

“Oh, don’t worry, “Daro grinned, wrapping hir long legs around his waist, and pushed into hir, slowly, carefully. “I’ll take good care of you.”

Carli released a ragged sigh as he filled hir, possessed hir. S/he felt as soft and slick as any woman he’d ever made love to: wet and pliant and oh so responsive… and very, very vocal in hir pleasure. S/he gripped him with hir surprisingly strong inner muscles, and Daro needed all his considerable self-discipline not to lose it on the spot.

He didn’t want to come right away. He wanted to give the little alien a really good time; s/he’d suffered enough lately. He moved inside hir with strong, powerful strokes, and s/he was kissing him passionately, hir curling little tongue moving in counterpart with his thrusts. 

They fit together better than he’d have expected when Selar had asked his assistance. And when he finally let go, for a moment he could forget the sight of Baldor’s maimed body, lying in a dark corridor of the _Copernicus_ – and the knowledge that not even that much was left of his bondmate by now.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Afterwards, they slept for an hour or so, entwined on Carli’s bed. When they woke up, Carli looked lazy and content like a kitten that had been in the cream, but was clearly still in an amorous mood.

“You were magnificent,” s/he smiled, licking Daro’s bare shoulder playfully. “I feel much better. I’d like to do something for you now – is there anything you’d like to do?”

Daro opened his mouth, then closed it again, becoming green in the face as his copper-based blood rushed to his head. There was _definitely_ something he’d have liked to do, but he clearly wasn’t sure about asking.

“Come on,” Carli murmured encouragingly. “You did something for me; now it’s my turn. What’s your shameful secret?”

“I’d like to take you as a man,” Daro finally confessed, reaching between hir legs to take hir clitopenis in the hand, rolling the small, soft balls between his long fingers. “Would that be okay? I know that you’re technically a woman now, but I’d like to try…”

Carli smiled and rolled over without a word, rising to hir hands and knees, offering hir backside for the taking. S/he didn’t have much of an ass to speak of, being as thin as s/he was, just a modest swell of flesh; but as s/he lowered hir upper body onto hir pillow, hir ass-cheeks opened on their own and revealed hir small, pink hole and the still swollen labia beneath.

Daro couldn’t help laughing at hir willingness. “You’re absolutely shameless, you know that?”

“There’s no shame in love,” Carli replied, looking back at him over hir thin shoulder with a mischievous smile, hir incredibly blue eyes glowing with a golden light. “Lubricant’s on the nightstand.”

“I’ve got a better idea,” Daro dipped his rapidly hardening dick between hir labia. I’ll use your own juices.”

Carli’s breath caught as s/he was taken from behind, without preamble, without warning, but s/he didn’t seem to mind it at all. Daro sampled some of hir copious juices and began fingering hir tight little hole, pushing his thumb inside. Hir species didn’t seem to have the equivalent of a prostate gland, unlike most humanoid species, but hir anal ring was apparently very sensitive in hir current state. S/he clenched around him rhythmically while he was taking and fingering hir. 

Daro led hir ride out hir second climax before pulling out of hir and pushing into hir relaxed hole. He had to be very careful, because s/he was very tight there, even a little inflexible, hir species clearly not used to anal sex. Hir elfin face crumpled in pain as he breached hir, and s/he whimpered a little.

Daro stopped, waiting for hir to get used to the intrusion and massaged hir labia to help hir relax. Carli rubbed hirself against his fingers like a cat and hir sphincter loosened a little more, allowing him to slip inside hir ass deeper and deeper, until he was sheathed to the hilt.

“Are you okay?” he asked in concern. “Am I hurting you?”

“I feel full, so full,” Carli moaned, but there seemed to be quite a bit of pleasure in hir voice, too. “It burns.”

“You’re very tight,” Daro muttered. “I’m afraid to move; I don’t want to tear your ass.”

“You won’t,” s/he panted. “Just keep doing _that_ , with your fingers… it helps.”

“I can do that,” Daro kept stimulating hir from the inside, and finally s/he relaxed enough for him to move inside her without hurting hir.

After all the prep work, he didn’t last long and came soon in hir tight little ass, flooding hir insides with his hot release. S/he winced a little when he pulled out of hir ass but seemed content enough nonetheless.

“Are you hurt?” he asked, examining hir hole in concern. It was reddened a little, but otherwise looked hale enough.

“It still burns,” s/he admitted, “but not too badly. And I liked the feeling when you came inside my ass. It was… new. We are either man or woman in the heat and never copulate with one of the same gender.”

“Is that a taboo?” Daro asked, worried that he might have caused hir problems with hir own people.

“No,” s/he replied with a shrug. “Just something we usually won’t do. I think the idea never occurred to anyone, seeing that the heat primarily serves the begetting of children.”

“Do you have any?” Daro could vividly imagine hir in the middle of a whole bunch of elfin children, with large, luminous blue eyes and their oversized ears sticking out of unruly mops of dark hair. 

Carli laughed, catching that mental image due to their physical closeness.

“No, I’m still too young. I mean, I _could_ , of course, biologically at least, but we just don’t… not before we’re mature enough for parenthood. I’ve got a long way to go until that.”

“And who decided when you are mature enough?” Daro asked.

“I do,” s/he smiled at him. “We can feel when our time of parenthood has come,” s/he took his hand and guided it to the place between hir legs again. “So, you see, I still have time enough to play with you. Come; I like it when you put your fingers inside me. It’s a good feeling.”

He smiled back and slipped a couple of fingers inside hir as requested. “You mean like this?”

S/he groaned in pleasure and fell back onto hir pillow. “Yes, just like this. I hope it will take Professor R’Nata a long time to declare us clean. I could get used to this quarantine thing.

~The End~


End file.
